


Three & A Half Feet Tall

by zanni_scaramouche



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Adopted, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, BAMF Stiles, But Not Much, Derek Hale & Scott McCall are Siblings, Detective AU, F/M, First time using Noah vs John I’m so sorry, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Internalized Homophobia, It’s John in my heart, Kate Argent is her own warning, Kidnapping, Lawyer Derek Hale, Lets just say Dark Themes, M/M, Minor Character Death, Missing Persons, Past Allison/Derek, Past Danny/Derek whaaat, Sexual Content, Stilinski Family Feels, The Five AU, There are more I will update as I recall them, Violence, ditto for Gerard, for Parrish and Noah, mentioned murder of children, slowburn sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-26 07:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanni_scaramouche/pseuds/zanni_scaramouche
Summary: Five year old Scott McCall entered the forest with his older brother Derek, joined by friends Stiles and Allison. He never came out. Twenty years later Detective Noah Stilinski finds McCall’s blood at a crime scene. As the case unfolds the four people present at the time of his disappearance find themselves caught in a web of secrets new and old. One question they’re all asking:Where is Scott McCall?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Let the story begin!
> 
> Honestly one of my messiest, most unedited stories. I've thought of taking it down. I'll leave it up for prosperity & humility.  
We all have our bad sides haha!

Stepping under yellow tape is different for everyone. The beginning of a new mystery, the thrill of a chase compelling you to find the scattered puzzle pieces. Or the dip of a head mimicking shame, like an imposter entering the sacred ground of a religion they don’t belong to. Noah Stilinski feels neither of these when he habitually ducks under the stretched border. He’s a cop, doesn’t matter which side of a flimsy line is pulled across a parking lot he stands on. 

Jordan Parrish follows, new enough for his eyes to hold the bright glint of possibility.  
Forensics beat them and by the looks of it they secured the scene too. They’re clustered at the bottom of the hotel stairwell like a group of interns, overskilled and underpaid, waiting for their turn.

Parrish nods towards the third floor crime scene. 

“What’s up there?”

“Not my sort of holiday,” Answers one of the kids, the puppy dog one.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Noah keeps walking so he doesn’t see the flirty smiles and sparkling eye contact. It’s harmless, and he’s had the talk with Stiles about spectrums and binarys and he’s got no issues with any of it, honestly, but after three years of this back and forth he’s lost hope and he fears he’ll forever be a voyeur to a lost cause.

The hotel is an optimistic three stars. Normally he’s conscious of how much dirt his uniform boots track in, but the garish pattern that should have stayed in the seventies does little to arouse remorse when he stomps over it.

The body is a half dressed young male. Top tear-off strips of condom wrappers litter the floor, a luggage bag spills its guts across the bed, there’s no wallet.

“Name listed at check-in is Andrew Green. Paid cash and was alone at the desk,” Parrish reads off.

“You see what I see?” He asks wearily, knowing the end to this before it starts. 

Parrish’s eyes have lost their shine. Prostitution gone wrong, maybe a lovers tryst if things spice up. And by spice he means ground pepper, not even cayenne.

“Phones gone,” Parrish offers as a consolation prize for the lacklustre scene. 

It’s a good point. Wallets aren’t traceable if cards aren’t used, but technology is. Within less than an hour they’ve seen all they can and wave at the forensics kids, they’re all kids to him now, christ. He’s following Parrish out when his partner stops and glances at the body.

“You think Stiles ever met him?”

Noah forces himself to look at the boy on the floor. Out of habit he avoids the vacant brown eyes. He’s not a kid, far from it in fact, but he’s near enough to the age of his own son that it plays on his mind. No good comes from brown eyes.

The shrug he gives is a perfected show of nonchalance, “More likely than not.”

Parrish is halfway down the stairs when Noah shakes his head and follows. His boy.

There’s half a doughnut in his mouth when some yells, “Detective!”

With effort he manages to keep the guilt off of his face. He’s an adult and he’ll eat what he likes. The face of the shouter tells him this isn’t about his cholesterol. It’s one of those forensic kids and he’s sweating.

“Detective, there’s been a match to the blood on the bandage,” the tech breathes.

“What bandage?” He asks around the doughnut.

“We picked up a band-aid in the Andrew Green room. The blood, you’re not going to believe this,” the poor tech is shaking and Noah has half a mind to ask what the hell his doctors prescribed because it’s not working.

“Spit it out,” he waves with his sticky fingers to encourage forward movement.

“It’s Scott McCall,” a ringing starts in Noah’s ears so loud his vision starts to blur.

“Who’s idea was this?” He asks and the tech starts to wobble like he’s uncertain and innocent and not a traitorous little shit. Noah throws the last mouthful of doughnut onto the ground. “Whoever thought this was funny will enjoy unpaid suspension. You’ll join them if you don’t tell me who the fucker is.”

Noah doesn’t swear. It took him several years too many to stop the habit after Stiles was born and by the time he managed Stiles already knew them all, but it took so much effort to erase the words that they remained absent from his vocabulary.

But this. This was something else.

Because he can still feel chubby five year old hands clinging to his when he holds a toothbrush. He still sees shining brown eyes when he puts his head on the pillow. He still hears Stiles screaming Scott’s name for every second it takes to fall asleep in an empty house. Because Scott was in his care when he disappeared twenty years ago, and not a day goes by that Noah doesn’t think about that. It’s been years. Decades. There’s only so long you can look.

Parrish walks in behind the stuttering tech. His lips are thin but there’s a spark in his eyes. A blasted little flame only a true case could inspire.

“Fuck.”

The curse is a whimper of pain as his chest is torn apart by the ragged claws of a merciless creature cracking the brittle twigs of a once abandoned nest between his ribs. It’s name is hope. With a sweaty hand he touches his brow and hides his hot eyes. Breathe in. Hold it until the shaking bursts it out. Breathe in again. His free hand fumbles for his desk but he’s falling into his chair before he can grab it. He sinks down.

An hour of breathing air through the screened window above his ten cubic feet of personal property in the bullpen finds him once more in control of his body, if somewhat stiffly. He picks up the phone.

X

Derek enters the room, cement surrounding him. It neatly holds one table, a pair of chairs, and the two people he hates most in the world. Kate Argent smirks at him from the other side.

“Can’t stay away, can you?” her high voice echoes in the chilled space, but she’s wrong.

He has stayed away. In nearly a decade he’s managed to forget how it felt to breathe the recycled oxygen pushed through these halls. When the worst he had to bear was knowing. Listening to her describe every cut she made, every time he’d screamed or cried or begged, how many hours it took until finally his brother had died.

There was no one to tell him about the fire. It had been an accident. He’s seen the report, it says the exact same thing they told him at ten years old. A gas leak in the night. Someone sparking the stove to make midnight tea. No one's fault. Derek had been staying at a friends house to work on a school project. His mom was the only one who drank tea. His sisters had been in the basement and were trapped by fallen support beams by the time they woke. 

No one could guess why they were down there, but Derek had known. It was a test of childhood bravery, surviving a whole night the dark tunnels of the old house had been a right of passage. Before the collapsed basement doorway their father had died of smoke inhalation.

A friend of the family, Melissa Delgado, was quick to take him in when no other family could be reached. She told Derek she always wanted another son. Someone for Scott to play with and learn from and trust. She was nothing but a patient and caring mother to him, and Derek failed her. Failed his brother.

“It’s not your fault Derek,” she’d said with his face between both hands so he has nowhere to escape. It had been the muddled hours of morning after an eighteen hour shift and her eyes looked exhausted when they bore into his, “It’s no one's fault but the bitch who took him.”

So when he was sixteen and the sorrow had hardened into hate he’d visited the woman they said was responsible. They never found Scott, but there were others. Kids like him, little and gullible. Their bodies put her behind bars and Derek finally had a face other than the mirror to blame.

He waits until he’s fully seated in his chair with both feet flat on the floor to ask, “Did you kill him?”

Her head knocks back with the force of her laughter, so shrill and sharp it could never be confused for joy.

“Why ask what you already know?” she breathes around giggles.

He grinds his jaw and starts the game they used to play, “How did you do it?”

The smile on her is razor sharp, “I tracked him, caught him wandering like a lost pup. Then I took him. And you know what happens next, Der,”

“He’s alive.” 

He cuts her off with a certainty he doesn’t have. He doesn’t know what to think after the phone call he received from Mr. Stilinski this morning, but he wants to see her face when he says it. He watches closely. 

“They found his blood this morning.”

Kate’s smile dims, but she gets a handle on it and stretches her lips wide in a grisly show of teeth. 

“I took him,” She snarls, “then I put a knife in my hand and I stuck your little baby brother like a squealing pig.” 

Though her eyes are wide, they’re not crazed. However twisted her view of it is, she still lives in the same reality he does.

He exits the room. Kates chains may nail her to the floor, but he can feel the grabbing hands of thoughts he’d left in these halls snag on his clothes and dig into his skin. There’s a voice in his head he hears with every step.

What if.

He tries to ignore how much it sounds like Stiles.

X

“We don’t choke our friends“ Stiles says coughing on the air. “Jenny, your new perfume is great but unless you’re trying to kill me, one spray is okay. Not twelve.”

The girl sheepishly slips out of the common room. Stiles knows it’s probably her first perfume and she’s excited, but everyone still needs to breathe so he knocks open a few of the windows by the couches.

He’s bent over and fighting with layers of crusted paint jamming the window sill when he hears someone crash in. One glance and Stiles has never seen him before, but he’s seen the look. The kid is dark skinned and panting like he’s been running and there’s a flighty look in his eye that Stiles knows. What makes Stiles scramble off of the couch is the widespread fear that tops it off.

“Hey, it’s cool dude,” he says, “you’re safe here.” 

The look on the guys face is enough to say he doesn’t trust him. Stiles isn’t expecting him to, but the looks he keeps casting down the hall are putting him on edge. Or, more of an edge. Stiles angles himself to see more of the hallway.

“Is someone following you?”

The guy looks over his shoulder and then shakes his head.

“I don’t think so. I need… ” he looks over his shoulder again, “I need you to call the cops.”

It’s not the first time Stiles has had the cops as guests of the Centre. He’s not a fan. It always puts everyone on edge for a few days and he has to remind them he can be trusted. Being the son of a cop never made him a snitch. He barely made eye contact with his father since he showed up with Mr. Cute-ass in tow like always.

Erica crosses her arms where she leans in the doorway with him, hovering between the entrance hall and common room. Stiles has been turning people away with the rumour of a flood, but he lets her stay and watch the new boy talk with detectives. It’s a hell of a story. Kidnapped, held captive, and a harrowing escape to boot. It’s almost harder to believe than the phone call from his dad earlier, but Stiles has been blocking all memory of that so he can keep functioning, and the boys story has been an excellent distraction.

“Why did he come here?” Erica asks, “out of all the places to go, why would he show up here?”

Stiles gives her a side eye. She’s shifting her weight, a scowl on her face. It’s quite unlike her usual fondness for damaged people. He shrugs.

“Maybe he’s been here before, maybe it was the first place he saw.” Stiles shrugs and turns to face her, “doesn’t matter. He said there were others with him. I hope they find the bastard quick.”

Erica hums in not-quite-agreement at his sharp tone. There’s something off about her still. She doesn’t take her eyes off of Boyd even when Stiles thinks she must feel his own looking at her. Not everyone grew up with case files as bedroom stories, he reminds himself. Maybe he should give her the next few days off. It’s been too long since either of them took a decent break away from work. Running a youth shelter was a job that demanded a break, or else it broke you.

The idea had been in his head long before graduation, but he didn’t commit until Derek moved in with Allison. His memory of those first few days, what he wasn’t blacked out for, are not his finest. Derek has been holding Allison’s hand since grade school, they were the ‘it’ couple. During Stiles’ senior high school year there had been some… interesting developments. Like Derek showing up unannounced. Like Derek pushing him against a wall. Like making out and jerking each other off. On numerous occasions.

And Stiles hadn’t asked about it, didn’t want to question a good thing, but he’d thought… he doesn’t know what he thought. The day Allison posted a photo of the happy couple smiling in front of a shared set of keys it pushed him into a downward-denial-spiral-of-doom, or so his dad has dubbed it. When he surfaced three weeks and many litres of alcohol later he dedicated himself to staying sober and latched onto the foreclosed building near the wrong side of town.

For seven years he’s put his heart into running this place. Creating a safe haven for kids with no options took more than a building and a few beds. Stiles sleeps upstairs, he spent his college fund on furnishing the building and legalizing the place, applying for government funding and grants wherever he could. Whatever he can spare he pays the staff, most of which are people he took in near the beginning, like Erica.

He’s kept his distance from Allison and Derek. After their breakup there wasn’t really a reason to reconnect. Derek was off getting his law degree, Allison working on her medical, and Stiles was here, earning next to nothing and eating leftovers from his dads fridge. They exchange Christmas cards and the occasional birthday text, but it’s been a long time since he’s actually spoken to either of them.

His dad called them all this morning. Stiles thinks he was third on the list, right after direct family. Now, as he lets his muscles relax and the doorway frame dig into his back, his mind wonders how they reacted. He wonders if their guts are twisting as tightly as his every time they move with the thought of Scott being alive. The inside of his cheeks are ragged from where he’s bitten them to shreds to keep from shouting the four words on his tongue.

I told you so.

X

The woman has the audacity to ask, “Are you serious?”

Some genius in the forensics lab made the connection between the band-aid they found Scott’s blood and the blood donor fair that ran over the weekend before. It was the same little circle they used, and with only a little dot of blood on it’s gauze it fit the bill for a needle wound. There were cameras around the facility. They possibly held the image of Scott McCall walking and breathing and living.

She doesn’t stop there. “They ran for thirty six hours. Each. That’s like a hundred and fifty hours of footage. It’s going to take weeks.”

Noah puts his hands on his belt and leans close, “We’ve waited twenty years. I can wait a few weeks.”

“Sir,” The paper filer scurries off at the sound of his partner's voice before he can dig into her further. 

Parrish jogs down the aisle between desks. He’s fit and young and doesn’t sound out of breath when he reaches him. Noah wishes he wasn’t jealous. 

“We located Andrew Green’s phone, they’re bringing in the guy who had it.”

“Is he… ”

Parish’s lips thin before he nods.

“Brown hair, brown eyes, mid twenties. We don’t know. It could be but,” Parrish winces like he can feel the death grip Noah’s eyes have on his every movement, trying to hear something his words aren’t saying, “there’s no way to know. He’s not speaking yet.”

It’s the last word, those three little letters of inevitability, that drives it home. Noah can feel the blood pulsing in his temples, his neck, his sweaty palms. There’s a boy in custody. A man, really. He tells himself it’s not Scott McCall, but it could be, and the possibility of it clogs his veins.

He’s not going to be able to tell. The fact is shameful to admit. Twenty years is too long for him to predict what chubby, rosy cheeked Scott would look like as an adult. The memory of his features have been warped by grief and time. He can’t call Melissa. Maybe he could, but he doesn’t feel he should. Maybe he’s too close to this, but he can’t bear to drag her back into a nightmare she’s had to drag herself out of.

He calls Derek. It’s not much better.

X

Deja vu puts Derek twenty three, then twenty, years back when he enters the police station. It fades when he sees Stiles standing at the counter, drumming his fingers and staring in the vacant way he does when deep in thought. Derek used to see him like this, when he came through the window and Stiles was elbow deep in homework.

He wears his hair differently. Longer. He’s lost the roundness of childhood, now angular where he used to be soft. Derek has been still for too long, he attracts the attention of curious brown eyes. They’re the same as they’ve always been and seeing them in the face of this new Stiles pulls Derek into the present moment. He can move again.

“It’s not him,” Stiles says when Derek reaches the counter.

There are photos splayed out, but Derek doesn’t look. He’s got a feeling the weight of his gaze is the only thing keeping Stiles from punching him or disappearing and Derek hasn’t decided which he would prefer to happen.

“How can you know?”

Stiles' voice gets snide when he replies, “I think I would know.”

The heat of aggression flares in response to Stiles’ tone. He clenches his fists with the effort not to snap back and finally looks at the glossy fresh photographs displayed on the counter. They’re of a man the right age and dark features, yet within the first second Derek’s gut clenches. Stiles is right. Whoever this man is, he’s not Scott.

His suspicions were correct about Stiles. When he stops looking at the photos he’s alone at the counter. A quick glance into the station and he spots him twenty feet away. Derek can’t stop the way he scans this new Stiles again, getting caught on the deep bow of his lips, the defined line of his jaw, the curve of his eyebrows. 

Derek’s mind is searching for something, but before he can recognize what it is, the full picture comes into focus and he realizes what Stiles is doing. He’s leaning over a desk with his phone out. Derek looks at the cops scattered around. They’re chatting in groups with food in hand, mostly on lunch break or heads down stuck in notes and laptops. No one notices Stiles snapping photos. No one but Derek.

He marches over. There’s more photos on the desk, this time of a young man much less alive than the last. Stiles gives him a glance and continues skimming his fingers over to show the photo’s buried underneath and taps his phone a few more times. Derek doesn’t remember him ever being this silent. He can only stand it so long.

“What are you doing?”

He keeps his voice low to avoid drawing attention, his eyes still shifting around the room. The desks are only separated by stacks of paper and books, not nearly enough for Stiles’ actions to be discreet.

“Cops have their limitations. Sometimes they need a little assist.” 

Derek narrows his eyes. Stiles catches it when he looks at him and rolls his eyes. 

“Calm down,” he slips his phone away and stands straighter to face Derek proper. “I show this photo to a few people, maybe they knew him, maybe they didn’t. If they did, we’re one step closer to finding Scott. You’re welcome.” 

Stiles pokes him in the chest.

Derek looks at the photos again. It’s not a pretty death. He catches the name scribbled on the bottom; Andrew Green. The body they found Scott’s blood next to. An unsettling tilt upends his mind when Derek tries to picture Scott in the same room as the body. He clenches his jaw to ward off the bile burning the back of his throat. Then he thinks of Stiles asking the wrong person the wrong question and pushing when he should back off, because that’s all he ever does, and Derek almost chokes as the photo distorts to show Stiles face down.

“I’m coming with.”

Stiles opens his mouth like he’s going to fight him on it. Then he does something. He closes his mouth and thinks before he talks. Derek feels his eyes widen in shock.

“Fine. But my house, my rules, buddy.” Stiles says without noticing or perhaps ignoring the way Derek is looking at him. 

As Stiles grabs a pen and notebook from the desk Derek watches his face, counts the moles on his cheek and calculates the curl of his eyelashes so he can be certain that this is the same boy. Seconds later he’s shoving an inelegantly folded note into Derek’s hands.

“Meet me there. Don’t expect me to wait.”

He heads for the door and Derek follows.

“Derek,” A man calls.

Derek turns to find the elder Stilinski coming towards him. There’s a spot in Derek’s chest that will always be soft for the man. He was the responding officer for the fire. He used to be a staple figure in the McCall house, until the disappearance.

“Detective,” he greets.

They go over what they can about the case. A body, a band-aid, a few drops of blood. Mr. Stilinski can’t say much more about the case, but he admits there’s nothing more to really say even if he wanted to. As he starts to leave they shake hands and the detective pulls him into a quick one armed hug.

“I’m not going to stop this time.” Mr. Stilinski says when they part. There’s steel in his eyes.

Derek nods, “I believe you.”

Derek heard through Allison about the home for wayward youth Stiles was running. At the time he’d been avoiding any thought of the kid. He looks at the address scribbled in familiar penmanship. It represents the life Stiles has now. Derek would have no idea where it was if Stiles hadn’t written the address for him. He tries to ignore how unsettled the thought makes him when he punches it into his GPS.

Stiles is talking to a redheaded girl when he comes in the front door. The place is quaint. Cozy, in a worn-in a sort of way. There’s a wall of printed photos filled with smiling faces that Derek avoids looking at too closely. A scattered bunch of couches fill one side of the room, a few tables in the back where kids are eating and writing in notebooks, open space in the middle with scars on the floor to show for it’s history of use.

“Nothing so far,” Stiles says, appearing at his side while the place has distracted him. .

Derek hums. His throat feels tight. It’s hard to adjust to the Stiles that can move so quietly. .

“C’mon,” Stiles says when Derek doesn’t say anything like a moron with his fists in his pockets, “I have a feeling that Isaac might know something.”

He lags behind Stiles until they step into one of the boys sitting at a table. Stiles sits opposite of the curly haired boy with his nose in a book. Derek copies him and drops into an obscenely bright plastic chair, feeling like he’s in kindergarten.

“What?” The boy says in a flat voice over the pages.

Stiles puts on a tight smile. Derek wonders if he’s this bad with all the kids. “Isaac, this is Derek,”

“Is he a cop?” Isaac flicks a glare at them.

“No,” Stiles huffs, “he’s my- my old friend.” 

Derek watches Stiles stumble and wince over the words. Derek works to keep his face blank.

“We’re looking for his brother. Can I show you a photo of a body?”

The kid looks between them like they’re a pair of idiots. It makes Derek’s palms itch to strangle the little shit.

“I don’t know how you think a body is going to help you find your brother, but yeah, whatever.”

“Great!” Stiles perks up and slides his phone over the table.

Isaac picks it up. He flicks through the photos quickly until his face pales. He swipes slowly one more time and drops the phone. He shoves it back at Stiles with a weak scowl on his face. Derek knows the kids trying not to show how affected he is, he wears the same look when he visits Kate. Hopefully he wears it better.

“Yeah, I know- knew him,” He says, no longer meeting their eyes. “That’s Aiden.”

“Aiden?” Derek copies.

Isaac cuts him a quick glare. 

“That’s what I said, dipshit. Aiden Zwilling. He used Seymour street to pay for school until he got the job as an IT consultant with Alpha Tech.”

“Thanks Isaac. Big help.” Stiles gets up and hovers by his chair. “See you later for game night?”

Derek can’t believe it. Stiles is going to walk away? This kid might be holding onto something that could get them to Scott. Stiles gives him a look and jerks his head in a pointed message. Derek returns the raised eyebrows and uses both palms on the table to shove himself out of the chair. When he looks at Isaac again his shoulders have dropped from their tense near ear position and he’s rolling his eyes.

“You fucking wish, Stilinski.”

“A man can dream!” Stiles calls back and leads Derek away with a shoving hand on his bicep.

“What the hell, Stiles,” Derek demands under his breath.

Stiles doesn’t seem phased, still walking towards the hallway when he answers, “We have a name and company. Anything he can tell us we can find elsewhere.”

That’s not enough. Over the years Derek’s carried a pebble of anger in his ribcage, a hot stone he pushes all of his rage into when he needs to keep his head in court. It took years to manage it and within seconds the effort he put into his control flies out of the window as the pebble grows into a boulder pushing on his lungs. As soon as they turn into the hall Derek crowds into Stiles’ space.

“He could know something! We didn’t even show him a photo of Scott, maybe he knows-”

Stiles doesn’t shy away from him like expected, they end face to face with inches between them. 

“I push more now and he clams up, then the cops have to come in and question him, then he disappears and next I’m showing his photo around, hm?”

He looks Derek square in the eye and it’s clear Stiles inherited the steel will of his father. Derek grinds his jaw and backs off. He shakes his head and keeps going until he’s out the door.

x

“Sheriff.”

“Deputy,” Noah nods back to Parrish, an old joke from Parrish’s training days.

Noah presses into the old chair and stretches out his back with a groan. He rubs his hands across his face, digging the heels of his palms into his burning eyes. When he blinks the spots away he sees Parrish propped against his desk in a slump. There’s a bad taste in Noah’s mouth. Their only lead on the Andrew Green case was the cellphone guy. A convincing tail of ill-timed pick-pocketing and a negative facial match to Scott meant they had to let him walk out the door and leave them with shit all.

“Anything?”

“Christopher Hartly,” Noah reads from the screen, “one parking ticket two years ago. Needs a new photo, but no priors, no misdemeanors, and no reason to keep him around.”

Noah twists in his chair his mind snagged on Scott’s sudden reappearance. How did that sweet little boy get wrapped up into something like this. What’s happened to him?

Parrish looks at his watch, “You thinking pepperoni or spicy chicken tonight?”

Noah shifts gears and starts considering the pros and cons of meat toppings versus heartburn when his weight rotates the unbalanced chair to face the door. His features furrow before he knows why he’s confused. A familiar face is at the entrance talking with the secretary. Vernon Boyd. Captured five years ago on his way home from an afterschool job, kept in the dark, used to play out his tormentors fantasies. There’d been a tearful reunion when his parents and little sister came to pick him up, Noah had needed to look away to maintain his composure.

The kid catches his eye from across the room.

“Look alive, Parrish,” he stands and rebuttons the top of his collar, “We've got company.”

He nods to the secretary looking uncertainty between them. The kid had been, and still was, sporting some pretty big psychological scars from the whole endeavour, which made his statement a gruelling struggle with his stiff tongue. Noah has been patient. He and Parrish worked what they could from him at Stiles’ place and told the kid to come back if there was more to add.

They take Vernon to an interrogation room. After a few days away from the chaos and being around his family he tells them he’s ready to share more information about his time in captivity. He’s worried about the others.

He’d told them before, there were four kids locked up with him. He can’t describe them very well. They were chained to the wall and a dim light came in only when someone entered or left, which always happened at night. The only thing he knows for certain about his captor is that it was a man.

“It was a big house. Brown, maybe grey.”

“That’s really good Vernon,” Parrish says.

“Can you… ” the kid cuts himself off. 

Both detectives wait in silence. Already they’ve been at it for a few hours, they’d wait for several more if it got them inches closer to finding those kids. 

“Can you call me Boyd? I used to… I was on the lacrosse team before, we went by our last names.”

“Of course, Boyd.” 

Boyd licks his lips and ducks his head at the name. Parrish is good at that. Noah would like to say that he had a good teacher, but the truth is Parrish was a natural people person.

“I remember the street name… something Mill Road…”

They wait. They encourage. It pays off.

“Old Mill Road, maybe?” 

He looks at them for an answer. They give it to him in nods and smiles.

When he leaves there’s nothing Noah wants to do more than march down the entire street and scout every brown and grey house until they find the kids. Unfortunately he’s human, and so is Parrish, so they hand over the information to the night team for whatever use it will be and forgo the pizza for a tight turnaround sleep.

They arrive at Old Mill Road the next morning. All of the houses are brick, but at the end of the road is an unmistakably shit brown house. A mansion, huge and new amongst old money houses. The neighbours door has lace curtains. Noah taps the glass once before an elderly asian woman pushes them aside.

“Good morning, Ma’am,” Noah greets when she opens the door.

“Officers, oh my,” She presses a paper thin hand against her chest in a fluster. 

They’re wearing dress blues today to play the friendly neighbourhood officers. It usually works better in these ritzy neighbourhoods than the nosy detective.

“We were on patrol when your garden beds caught the eye of my young partner here,” he gestures to Parrish with an impish grin.

“Sure did,” Parrish agrees smoothly, “I’ve never seen that colour of hydrangeas. How on earth did you manage them? And in this heat!”

Noah clears his throat to smother his glee.

“Oh dear, what a sweetie you are. Well, the thing you need to know about hydrangeas is that they were first grown in Japan, known as the water vessel… “

They listen to her talk about flowers until sweat darkens the creases of their uniforms. Slowly they manage their task.

“Yes, knee pads really do come in handy. Your neighbours, do they plant any flowers?”

“Oh goodness, no. Gerard has gardeners come in twice a week. Takes all of the heart out of it, truly. You know the plants can tell?” Her bobbed hair swings when she shakes her head. “Oh no, Gerard Argent is too busy to pay mother earth any respect. Although,” She presses her lips together as though she’s tasted something sour and lowers her voice, “he has this strange habit of walking his dog at night. I’ve been meaning to take a peak over there and see if he’s got any of those lilies of the nights. Oh! What a sight that would be! Can you imagine?”

“Quite,” Noah agrees. “And what could possibly keep Mr. Argent too occupied to tend to his flowerbeds?”

The woman, Miss Hirose as she’s introduced herself, scoffs and scowls. 

“That wretched business. He’s got trucks coming in all hours of the day carrying those guns of his.”

“Guns?” They perk up like dogs for a bone.

“You know, the armory business he’s had carrying on since his wife passed. Boys and their toys, quite barbaric if you ask me. Not you dears, you earn yours, but plain joe smoe carrying something he can’t handle, bah!” She shakes her head fiercely, “No good comes of that.”

“Right. Well thank you so much for your time Miss Hirose, Jordan is truly inspired. Have a good day now.”

Twenty overly pleasant minutes later they manage to extract themselves. They sit in the cruiser with the air conditioner on full blast, both sucking down water. It is blessedly silent.

They move on. Noah knocks on the solid black door with the side of his fist. It opens a quarter to reveal an older gentleman with a full head of white hair and deep set wrinkles. Isn’t it depressing, Noah thinks, to be closer to this man’s age than Parrish’s.

“Gerard Argent?”

“Present,”

“Officer’s Stilinski and Parrish,” he gestures to Parrish and they display their badges, hopefully too quickly for Argent to read the Detective where Officer should be. Technically it’s not a lie. “We’re here for a routine check in, make sure your license and inventory match up, that sort of thing.”

Argent pushes open the door and waves them in, “Please, be my guest. I’ll lead you to the armory.”

The house is immaculate inside. Polished floors and windows so clean they’re invisible. The walls are bare.

“Does your family live with you?”

Noah wishes he could see the man's face when he answers Parrish. 

“No. It was the plan originally, but there were some differences we couldn’t settle.”

“So you’ve got this whole place to yourself?” Noah asks.

Gerard peers over his shoulder. 

“My staff are always running underfoot, the upkeep is far too much for a single person, but yes. I am the sole occupant of the house.”

His phrasing reveals that he knew what they were getting at, but he must have known the second he answered the door and still let them in. They enter a six car garage with three vehicles parked. A sedan, a truck, an SUV. All black, all American make. The other end of the garage is caged off and they wait as Argent unlocks the thick padlock on the chain link door. 

When Noah passes through the threshold he feels a crash of cold water siphoning the heat from his bones. He can’t pinpoint what’s setting it off, but he’s been a cop long enough to know what it means. Something is not as it seems.

They flip through Argent’s catalogue and licenses and the racks lining the wall. Everything matches up. His books are neat, up to date, and in every sense of the word, clean. They leave without hesitation.

In tandem Noah and Parrish shut the passenger and driver doors of the cruiser. Parrish taps his finger against the steering wheel. Noah puts his elbow on the window sill and presses a hand to his mouth in thought. They sit. Wait.

Noah’s fingers fan out, “There was no dog. Miss Hirose said he walked his dog at night.”

Parrish stops his tapping to point forward, “Boyd said he wore a collar.”

Silence fills the car as they think about the sickness of humanity. They’re six miles away from the Centre. Noah pulls out the car computer, an excellent feature of patrol cars he doesn’t get to spend time in anymore, and starts filling out a warrant request. He’s interrupted by his phone vibrating in his pocket.

“Father o’ mine,” Stiles greets before he can say anything. “I’ve got an anonymous tip.”

“It’s not anonymous when I can pronounce your full name.”

“But you won't! Because you have mercy and I know Jordan is within hearing distance. Or would you rather I take my secrets to Officer Byrne?”

“Stiles,”

“Okay, you’re still my favourite don’t worry. Your dead prostitute's name isn’t Andrew Green. It’s Aiden Zwilling. And he’s not a prostitute, or just a prostitute, I guess. He was an IT consultant for Alpha Tech.”

“Do I dare ask how you came into this knowledge?”

“Nope! Goodluck!”

The line goes dead. Noah closes his eyes and sighs long and deep in a manner he’s perfected over the years. His bloody son. He calls in the information to the office and has one of the pencil pushers start running a background on the real name.

“Let’s swing by Hartley’s address while we’re at it. Maybe he has more to say about Mr. Zwilling than he did Mr. Green.”

The apartment building has oatmeal coloured walls and vans with family stickers on the rear windows. They find the directory and knock on the second floor door labeled C. HARTLEY. The man who opens it has a salt and pepper beard and piercing blue eyes.

“Good afternoon,” Noah says after a missed beat. “We’re looking for Christopher Hartley. Is he available?”

“You have him,” the man answers.

Noah shares a look with Parrish.

“Dad! Who is it?” a female voice calls from inside.

“The police, honey. It’s fine.” He looks at them. “Do you mind if we step out?”

Noah and Parrish back off so the man has room to close the door behind him. They arrange themselves on either side, keeping both ways blocked.

“There seems to be some confusion. Earlier this week we apprehended a young man who gave your name and address as his own. Can you think of someone who would do that?”

Argent doesn’t pause when he replies, “No.”

The door opens and startles them all.

“Dad! You have to stop saying ‘the police’ everytime my boyfriend…” A brunette dimple cheeked girl stands in the doorway. She stops when she catches sight of them conjugated and shys back. “Oh. Real police. Sorry.”

Mr. Hartley glares at his daughter who sheepishly smiles at them, an exchange that reminds Noah vividly of Stiles’ teenage years. 

“This is my daughter, Hayden.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am. We’ll only be another moment with your father.” Parrish charms. The girl blushes easily, but then again, most people do for Parrish.

“Sure thing, just let me know before you cart him away. Bye!” 

She slips back into the apartment. Chris is serious the moment the door shuts. 

“Is there a threat to my family? Should I make an identity theft claim?”

“You can’t think of a single reason why someone would have or use your details?”

“None. My work is contract based, most of my friends live out of town.” He glances at the door, “Hayden is the only family I have.”

The man has a hard gaze when it returns to them, but his demeanor is sincere. The lines on his forehead reveal his worry, and his tone with his daughter had been a softly chiding tone Noah used himself regularly. His gut is telling him: truth.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Hartley. I would make the claim, but there’s no reason to believe you or your family are in any danger. Contact us if anything comes up.” Noah holds out a card.

They fall back into the cruiser.

“What a mess.”

Noah hums in agreement. He has the robust car computer open again on an update from the office.

“Looks like we’ve got an address for Aiden Zwilling. If we stop now we can secure it and wait for forensics.”

Parrish leans over to look at the map on the screen.

“That puts the good deli on the way back to the precinct.”

Noah peers at the screen like he has to double check and feigns innocence, “What a coincidence.”

They share a conspiring look as Parrish starts the engine.

x

The thumping of his feet against the treadmill is the centre of his being. Nothing exists but his feet and the synthetic ground flying beneath him. There’s no drop of Scott’s blood. There’s no Kate Argent with a wicked smile. There’s no Stiles fucking Stilinski with long fingers and hair he just wants to-

He stumbles as a shrill default phone jingle interrupts his pace. With a heavy and sweaty hand he hits the machine until it slows to a walk. Phone in one hand and towel in the other, he picks up and wipes the sweat stinging his eyes.

“Hale speaking,” He manages without panting. 

He has to hold the phone away from his head so it doesn’t stick to his matted hair.

“Derek?” 

The voice is on the brink of being recognizable, but looking at the phone shows a string of numbers instead of a contact name. 

“It’s Danny, we had a class together a few years ago.”

Derek chokes on his own tongue, “Danny.” 

There's a silent moment where Derek tries to crush the vivid pictures he associates the man with and struggles to find normal words. 

“Long time. How’d things go after switching majors?”

Danny had been in law with Derek until he’d switched halfway through undergrad to computer programming. At the time Derek had been little more than indifferent, but retrospectively he missed joking with the guy between lectures. And other things.

“Really good, actually. Got a job coding out in New York. Despite being stuck behind a screen I still managed to strike myself a decent fiance.”

Derek looks up at his blank twelve foot ceilings like they’ll help erase the memory of Danny’s tongue in his ass. Yeah, no wonder how the guy managed.

“Way to go, Danny. Congrats.” And he means it.

“Thanks man. Listen, I’ve got a weird ask, but I’m running low on options. You went back to your hometown after school, right?”

“Yeah.” 

Derek stops the machine and leans on the railing, preparing himself for anything. Danny was always a stand up guy, even when Derek cut their hookups off abruptly in one of his many denial fits. If anything, Derek owes him for staying decent.

“A close friend of mine lives in town, Jackson Whittemore.”

Derek can’t help the sharp laugh that leaves him at the name. Of course the nicest guy he knows would be friends with the biggest asshole he’s ever met. Derek’s been in the courtroom with Whittemore on several occasions. Luckily they only faced off less than a handful of times before Whittemore started lecturing, so things never grew to be a full blown rivalry. It was enough to establish well-founded contempt.

“Yeah, I know. We met before he became a jackass so I’m stuck with him. Issue is, I haven’t heard from him for a few days. Wouldn’t be weird, except he’s supposed to be visiting tomorrow and he hasn’t even booked the flight.” 

Derek drinks from his water bottle as Danny talks. He steps off the treadmill and sits on the foot of it. 

“Not to sound like a jilted lover, but could you stop by and remind him I can impound his Porsche if he doesn’t pick up?”

Derek thinks of the look on Jackson’s face if he were to show up at his door. He’ll do it for that alone.

“Yeah, no worries Danny. Anytime.” 

Anything to keep him busy. The firm allowed him to use a week's vacation to spend time with his mother and be available for the investigation if anything came of it, but he can’t spend every second hovering over Melissa’s shoulder, or Mr. Stilisnki’s for that matter.

“Thanks man, I owe you. I'll text the address.”

The message pings through seconds later. Derek rolls his eyes at the street name. Of fucking course Whittemore would live within spitting distance.

X

Noah and Parrish park in front of the building. There’s construction happening on the street and a temporary ‘No Parking’ sign for it, but they’re the cops, so they park anyway. All the men in hardhats are working down at the corner and they aren’t going to be longer than an hour, probably. Cold cuts wait for no man.

The doorman lets them in. They take the stairs like they’re trying to prove something but Noah knows it wouldn’t make a difference. After the house visits and sitting in the cruiser for hours he’s exhausted and trying not to appear so. Damn Aiden Zwilling and his thirteenth floor view. The exhaustion disappears the second they step into the hallway and see the door ajar. Both detectives put a hand on their guns. Noah takes lead.

He nudges the door to reveal an open plan apartment and Christopher Hartley, the false one, jamming something into his backpack. Through thick brown locks the boy sees them enter and he sprints. Noah follows in pursuit towards the patio, but the boy already had the glass door open and he’s over the railing in an impressive show of agility that Noah knows would ruin his knees. 

From balcony to balcony the kid hops down. Parrish is nowhere in sight. Noah waits. He keeps post on the patio to keep the kid from trying to come back up.

Finally Parrish bursts through the building door just as the boy reaches the ground. From above Noah watches the short chase across the street. Parrish almost has his hands on the guy at the first corner when a construction worker steps out and swings a meaty fist. The boy drops, his head bouncing on the cement.

Noah curses loudly and reaches for his radio to call in an ambulance. So much for questioning.

x

She doesn't run. It’s a skipping jog she’s perfected from years of being a nurse. These hallways are more familiar than those of her home and she navigates them on instinct.

“We’ve already done a comparison, Mel. It’s not him.” Derek keeps pace with her.

“We? Who’s we?”

“Mr. Stilisnki previously arrested him for theft. Stiles stopped by, too. it was a consensus.”

She shakes her head and takes another turn, “Was there a DNA test? Hm?”

She rounds on him. He doesn’t reply, looking cowed. Oh, she loves this boy to bits. She has never once regretted taking him in, not once questioned if she’d made the right choice or what may or may not have happened. Talia would have done the same for her. Still, he can be such an idiot.

“No, I thought not.” She spins and takes the last few steps between her and room two-oh-four. “There’s no way to know for sure he’s not…”

She slows her steps as she enters the room. The lights have been dimmed for the night. She approaches the bed hesitantly, tears welling in her eyes.

“Scotty.”

She pushes the thick curls off of his bruised up face and smooths them back. After a moment she closes her eyes and wipes at the dampness. She looks at Derek frozen in the doorway. She shakes her head.

“He’s not my boy,” she gently pats the sleeping boys hand. “But he’s somebody’s.”

She allows herself to feel the wave of disappointment for one more moment, squeezes the hand of the poor injured boy in the bed, and steps away. She joins Derek in the hallway and crosses her arms to hug herself.

“You probably think I’m ridiculous,” she says, clearing her throat so her voice doesn’t catch on the wave of emotion she's riding. “I had to know, Derek. I had to see for myself.”

“It's okay.”

Then he’s right there, taking her into his arms and enveloping her into a hug. A new wave of hot tears start rolling and smear against his shirt. It’s been so long, how can it still feel like she’s losing him all over again?

“It’s the hardest part,” She mumbles into him with a shaky breath, “not knowing.”

When Derek was young she used to hold him like this when he cried for his mother, her own arms wrapped around thin shoulders to create a safe nest for him. Now he towers over her and she wonders when they switched spots.

x

The warrant comes through for Gerard Argents house. Noah and Parrish arrive bright and early with a team to help canvas the place.

In the car Noah checks his personal cell one last time for a missed call that’s not there and says, “Remind me to call Stiles. Usually when he doesn’t call by noon he needs a loan and doesn’t know how to ask for it.”

They step out. No one answers the front door. Noah casts a look around. No one is on the streets, not an unusual case given it’s a weekday and everyone’s either off to work or retired and lounging out of the heat. A flutter of lace in the neighbours doorway gives him the impression that just because he can’t see them doesn’t mean there aren’t eyes looking. They don’t need nosy neighbours coming to gawk if there’s a scene. This is a heavily armed man, afterall.

“Three men stay here, the rest follow,” he leads them around to the back. There are cameras on every angle, small black eyes he can’t do anything about. A creeping sense of dread crawls up the back of his neck. He can’t guarantee that this man won't come out with a bloody bazooka and the men he has are nowhere near prepared enough to handle much more than a shotgun. Something had told him not to wait for SWAT. The memory of the icy cold chill in the basement had pushed him to make the call. If he’s wrong, he knows it’s not only his head, but the lives of these men.

The backyard is just as pristine as the front. A crystalline swimming pool glitters in the sun and throws sharp rays into his eyes. He squints past them to see the patio door wide open.

They file into the house, announcing themselves as they go.

“Detectives. In the garage,” a voice cracks through the radio.

Noah turns from the kitchen and navigates himself to the garage. The men who aren’t holding a room collect in a row behind him.

“Sweet Jesus,” Parrish swears over his shoulder in a drawl he rarely slips.

One by one the men swear and groan as they enter the garage. A few turn back out of the room. Noah doesn’t hold it against them.

What he can only assume is Gerard Argent’s body lays in a mangled heap beside the bloody Jeep. Numerous bloody tyre tracks and pieces of flesh on the grill suggest the man was struck several times before he fell and was run over a few more times for good measure, given the overall flatness of some vital organs. The room reeks of the mess and residual exhaust.

There’s a trail of blood leading towards the armoury cage. Noah leaves his men to gawk and spectate while he follows the line of blood. It’s not drops fallen from a wound, it’s been drawn with something. It squiggles and falters in some places, but there’s enough of it to follow a jagged line all the way to the padlocked door. It ends there. He narrows his eyes and peers past the chainlink into the gun cage. 

Everything is immaculately kept, as it was when he first put eyes on it. Something still sends chills down his spine. He pulls out the bump key on his belt and inserts it halfway into the lock. He breathes in deep. On his exhale he pushes the key in and catches the split second of the bump to rotate, unlocking it. 

With trepidation he steps into the cage. He walks past the racks of weapons and ammunition with a keen eye on their shining faces until he reaches the far end. He looks towards the rest of the garage on the other side of the fence.

From the outside the garage is easily a six car space. Inside Argent has parked three and used one stall for the armory. The cement wall he stands at now is not where it should be. There’s a metal framed glass case screwed into the wall. A smear of blood mares the display glass at hip height, the only sign of imperfection. Noah looks down to his feet. 

A dismembered finger lays on the ground, flesh shredded where it once attached to a knuckle, like it’s been dragged. Someone had one hell of a pitch to get it through the chain link all the way to this end. Next to it Noah sees a scratch sketched into the cement floor. It’s circular, like a compass would draw forty degrees on paper, or more accurately, a small rock lodged under a door as it swung open. Noah grabs an edge of the case and pulls.

Things get chaotic after that. There were three children locked up behind Argents armory. They’re rushed to medical and sent with officers to identify their parents. Noah and Parrish shoot a few theories on the narrative for Argent’s death as it’s photographed and don’t talk about the looks on the kids' faces.

They’re wrapping up when they get an unfavourable call from the hospital. The false Christopher Hartley woke from his sedation and ducked the standby officer on him. The upside, they still have the computer he’d been trying to steal, the one supposedly belonging to Aiden Zwilling, and a tech is close to cracking it open.

They meet with the tech at the precinct. It’s the boy, the one always making eyes at Parrish, but this time his eyes are glued to the screen.

“Must have had a feeling something was going to happen because he wiped his computer. Luckily,” the kid shoots them a smile like an overeager puppy, “I managed to locate his backup files on the cloud. If you guys hang out for a few more seconds I’ll have the password… now.”

Noah and Parrish lean in as documents start to pop open on the screen. A list of names starts to scroll by them, and then another opens and does the same.

“What the bloody hell,” Noah mutters under his breath.

A small pop-up dings, declaring ‘Auto Termination’ and a loading bar that rapidly fills.

“Shit shit shit,” the kid types furiously at the keys to no use. 

The automated sound of a camera shutter sounds beside Noah and he sees Parrish with his phone out snapping at the window of names. A millisecond later the screen goes black. The kid hangs his head. He’s got one of those modern haircuts and the position shows off the meticulous fade of his hairline. Probably cost him a day's wages. Ridiculous.

“I’ll, uh, keep digging to see if there’s any traces left.” He shakes his head, “This guy was in the tech world, he really knew what he was doing even for a rush job like this.”

Parrish pats him on the shoulder. “Thanks Liam.”

Noah and Parrish fall into their adjacent desk chairs and recline as much as possible. Noah hangs his head backwards and closes his eyes. He can still see Argent’s body, the ragged finger, the sheer terror on the captives' faces. And the disappointment. A small nagging cry of disappointment when he saw the kids and knew none of them were Scott.

He needs whiskey.

He needs to call Stiles. Then he needs whiskey.

x

Allison hasn’t had a phone call from Stiles outside of holidays in years. Seven years, if she counted. He calls her after seven years out of the blue and asks what she’s up to. She’s grocery shopping. Because she’s an adult, with a mortgage, and a car, and a husband, and a career. On Monday nights she stocks up for the week, because it’s less busy than Sunday and it gives her a reason to be out of the house by herself. Matt hates grocery shopping. Can’t stand the crying children and inevitable traffic jam of wayward carts.

She’s in the frozen vegetable isle when he calls and asks if she’s busy tomorrow.

“Look, I know this is weird and you don't have to if there’s something else you got planned, but I’ve got a friend who could use someone to talk to. Someone not me. You remember Erica? I think you met during my open house thing. She was still in highschool back then but she’s doing great now, a real help actually. I just, this job is hard, and I know your job is too, and surprisingly filled with urine and other bodily fluids which you wouldn’t think but so is the Centre, so you two would have a lot in common maybe, and she’d probably feel reassured to talk to someone who knows what it’s like to always have to be focused, you know?” He chuckles nervously, “What do you think? Coffee? On me? I wont be there but I’ll send her with a giftcard-”

“It’s fine, Stiles.” She cuts in his ramble, “I can pay for a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, god. I did not mean it like-”

“Stiles,” She laughs, surprising herself, “It’s okay, I know. Should I pick her up at the Centre?”

The mic fuzzes when he releases a big sigh.

“Yeah, that would be amazing, Ally, thank you. She means so much to me, I just forget how hard life can be for someone without my stamina.”

“Okay, I’ll be there,” She smiles, “Oh, and Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“There is no other job that could possibly contain more surprise urine than mine.”

He laughs, bright and loud like he did when they were kids and Allison feels a pool of warmth glow in her chest and heat her cheeks in a way she isn’t used to. After they hang up it takes her several minutes to decide on which frozen peas to buy.

Erica is not what she was expecting. She’s not the timid girl behind solem eyes she remembers from their brief first meeting. She’s red lipstick and vibrant blond curls and curves she accentuates with fitted clothes. Allison feels underdressed in plane jane slip ons and her comfy jeans. She defaults to a chain cafe because she doesn’t know anything local and tries for the simple chatter she usually holds with coworkers while they wait in line.

“How long have you been working at the Centre?”

“Awhile.”

Allison had assumed the silence during the car ride had been due to shyness, the bluntness of Erica’s tone makes her think otherwise.

She tries again, “Do you enjoy it?”

“That is completely irrelevant,” The vehemence in her voice startles Allison. Her eyes look at the menu like it’ll tell her what button she pressed and how she can immediately un-press it. “I’m essential to keeping the Centre and Stiles floating. I’m not going to abandon either just because the works a bit shit.”

“You don’t think Stiles could run things himself?” 

Allison remembers when Stiles held the open house. One of the last times she saw him, actually. He’d been stressed and underslept but those weren’t unusual back then, and his smile when he’d started talking about his vision for the place had been unmatched. Everyone could see, stiles truly loved that place. Allison couldn’t imagine him not doing everything he could to keep helping kids.

Erica rolls her eyes in a flutter of heavily mascaraed lashes. 

“You know this whole Scott thing?”

Allison jumps at the sound of his name and gives a tight lipped nod. Mr. Stilinski had called. She hadn’t expected to hear anything more about it. Scott was dead. Whatever’s happening now will blow over. She gives a shaky smile to the barista and orders, trying to regroup, but Erica keeps talking.

“He’s not taking it well. He’s fixating. I’ve seen him like this before. When I first met him he was a mess over something and he had tunnel vision for the Centre. It’s like that, only this time it’s not a place he’s fixating on, it’s Scott.”

Allison’s fingers are so clumsy they need her entire focus as she fumbles with her change. She keeps her head down until Erica steps forward to order her own drink. Allison takes a steadying breath.

“I’m sure he’s being a bit odd, Stiles always was a goofball,” Allison forces a laugh, “but once he realizes there’s nothing more to find he’ll come back to himself.”

“You don’t get it,” Erica insists, “He’s completely shut everyone out. His dad keeps calling the Centre because he’s never answering his cell. I don’t think he’s even eating.”

Allison shakes her head, this girl is worrying over nothing.

“That’s absurd. Stiles can take care of himself, he’s an adult.”

“You haven’t talked to the guy in years. How can you be so sure?” Erica narrows her kohl lined eyes and they’re so accusing, like she thinks Allison is the reason Stiles doesn’t have his shit together. 

A spike of fear shoots through her at the thought that maybe Erica knows. Stiles would have had to tell her, but he wouldn’t. Right? Erica's words echo in her mind, stinging with truth, she hasn’t spoken to him in years. How much faith can she have that he’ll honour their promise?

The uncertainty is too much, she snaps. 

“Because I’m doing it!” She hisses. “I was there too and I’m doing just fine. Stiles is going to be fine.”

They call her name at the counter for her drink and she ignores it. She pushes the door and takes a big gulp of air. In the car her hands vibrate on the steering wheel. Taking calming breaths she buckles her seatbelt and leans over to push open the passenger door. Erica appears with two cups in hand. They sit in silence for the entire drive back to the Centre and say a short goodbye when Erica gets out.

Allison makes it six blocks away before she pulls over and digs through her purse for the two things she needs right now.

Derek answers immediately.

“Allison,” he greets.

“Derek,” she returns, hesitating for only a second before she lets her hand tighten inside her purse and she bites the bullet. “Can we meet?”

She walks into his house twenty minutes later, chin held high. It’s nice. Much nicer than the place they rented together in university, and even the modest place she owns now with Matt. The counter top she leans on in the kitchen is polished white stone.

“Thank you,” she murmurs when Derek wordlessly presses a glass of wine into her hands. It’s sweet and refreshing and exactly what she needs to have this conversation.

Somehow they’ve struck up a cordial friendship in the past few years. They tell each other their plans for the week, how the days have been going, the household projects they hope to do over the weekend and never manage to actually start. It’s a civil and grounding routine. This visit is not going to be one of those times.

She looks into her glass and wishes she could drown in it. 

“Do you remember what you were doing when Scott went missing?”

He freezes like she expected him too. This isn’t them. They don’t talk about the past. Cautiously he presses a cork stop into the bottle of wine.

“Of course. Mr. Stilisnki and I walked back to the car for the first aid kit when I scraped my knee.”

Allison smiles shakily at the memory she’d forgotten she had. Derek, thirteen and moody, had been showing off for the younger kids and tried climbing a tree. He made it less than two feet before his shoe slipped and the bark of the tree tore through his knee as he slid down. Stiles had demanded Derek go to his dad and it must have really hurt because Derek agreed after the weakest of arguments.

Stiles and Derek disappeared into the trees towards the log Stiles’ dad was sitting on just around the bend. They left squabbling over what superhero Derek was, a classic case of Superman vs Batman.

Allison had stayed with Scott. An easy task, really. She’s been eight years old, which was like a million years older than five so she could definitely watch over him. Plus, Scott adored her. The thought makes her tip the wine glass far back.

“Do you know where I was?”

He frowns. She doesn’t dare look at it, but she knows the face he’s making from the years they spent together. She can feel his mind unbalancing to a dangerous tilt.

“You were with Stiles.” He states. 

The wine glass in her hand starts to blur from the water in her eyes. Her body feels cemented in place as he walks around the kitchen island until he’s in front of her. 

“You were with Stiles,” He repeats urgently.

Tears spill in hot trails on her cheeks when she closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“No,” she breaths and makes the mistake of opening her eyes to find Derek inches away from her. “No, I wasn’t. I- I’m so sorry.”

“That’s what you told the police.” He says like a demand for her to take it back. “Stiles said-“

“He lied.” She interrupts. “I made him lie for me because I didn’t want you to know. I thought…” she stumbles with the words on her tongue and takes a deep breath of air to push the rest of them out. “I was embarrassed.”

“You were- ! “ 

Allison flinches at the way he yells. He catches it and cuts himself off quickly. She blinks to clear the tug of de ja vu from a very different time. 

She hears him struggle to reign in and ask through gritted teeth, “What happened?”

The glass is vibrating with how hard she’s holding it.

“You two left and I stayed with Scott. He always wanted to hold my hand, especially when he was scared and he was really worried about you… “ she loses her voice when she sees the stricken look on his face and has to swallow.

“I was hugging him to calm him down and he kissed my cheek. It’s… God it’s so stupid. He kissed my cheek and I pushed him down because I was a silly little girl. He was five years old and he probably kissed his mom all the time but I shoved him and he started crying.” She wipes her eyes. “Stiles saw it. He was walking back and saw me standing over Scott. I felt like a monster for making him cry. I ran. I just…” she motions with her hand, “ran away from them.”

“You told me you were playing hide and seek.” 

And she hates that tone of voice. The one that sounds like she’s betrayed him, when he was the one… but that doesn’t have a place here. She crosses her arms and picks at the skin of her bicep.

“Stiles came after me. I think he told Scott to go back to his dad. He must have forgotten his dad was in the car with you.”

“It’s not my fault.”

She scoffs a humourless laugh at his unnecessary defensive tone. 

“No. It’s mine.”

Silence hangs in the air. Like a helium balloon it swells, stretching to its limits. Her nose is dripping and she hates the way she has to keep sniffling to keep it from running down her face.

“Allison,” Derek says so low it’s near a whisper yet the sound of it pops the silence and startles her, she gasps with a jump. 

She feels ridiculous. He waits as she scrubs her face with her hands to wipe the tears and snot from her face in a futile effort to collect herself. Like facing a guillotine she meets his eye.

“You should have told the truth, but it’s not your fault.”

Her head starts to shake because it is, that’s the whole reason she kept silent about what’s been eating away at her. He takes her hand in his, dislodging her nails from where they’ve pierced her skin and left bloody tracks. His hands are too warm.

“We were kids. It’s not your fault.”

His gentleness undoes her. She’s sobbing into his chest without knowing how she got there. In his arms she feels like a little girl.

They end up on the couch eating Derek’s leftover spaghetti for lunch. There’s more than enough for the two of them, he still can’t measure pasta to save his life.

“I’m sorry I waylaid your day.” She says as she tucks her toes under his thighs. He shrugs.

“Took the day off anyway. An old friend asked for a favour.”

After the comfortable position they’ve found, the tightness in his voice piqued her interest.

“Oh?” 

She asks trying to sound cute and innocent in a way she usually manages. She knows she’s succeeded when he rolls his eyes.

“I have to relay a message to some asshole school teacher.”

Laughter bursts from her lips and tears of a very different kind swell in the corners of her eyes.

“You’re going to a school?”

He glares at her over a fork full of noodles.

“You look like a murderer on a good day. A single man too young to have a teenage child approaching a high school? They’re going to turn you around before you come within fifty feet.”

He tosses his dishes on the coffee table and stands. “Then I guess there’s only one thing to do.” There’s a slant to his lips that she hasn’t seen in a long time. It promises mischief.

“What are you thinking, Mr. Hale?”

“I think you’ll have to accompany me, Mrs. Hale, to the future school of our sweet young daughter whom we love dearly.”

She gapes. “You’re not serious.”

He lifts his eyebrows in challenge. 

“You’ve got a ring, they won’t look for mine, and you might witness me punching Jackson Whittemore in the face.”

“Whittemore?” She becomes more incredulous. 

He nods with a grin, knowing he’s hooked her. The clock over his shoulder reads half past noon. If they leave now she’ll still be home in plenty of time to make dinner for Matt.

“Okay,” she sets her dishes down, “I’m in.”

x

The teachers know shit all and Derek is ready to punch anybody at this point. When he took the request from Danny he thought it would be an excuse to expel some pent up tension by pushing around Jackson. Forty minutes into politely questioning teachers about the school amenities and then weaseling in a question or two about where they could find one of the teachers in the directory have left him sour.

Away on holiday, out with the flu, visiting distant family, on a retreat after a breakdown Miss Jones saw coming a mile away. Wherever he is, it’s clear his colleagues have no idea. He uses the last resort.

“Derek,” Allison hisses at him.

He keeps walking towards a group of girls giggling by the bike racks. They hush into whispers as he gets close.

“Hi, I’m a legal colleague of Mr. Whittemore. Do you know where he is?” 

The girls look at each other before it’s somehow decided who will respond to him.

“He doesn’t tell us shit,” A tough looking blond says.

“How long has he been away?”

The girls look at each other uncertainly, communicating in their minds somehow. 

“Wednesday?” One of them shrugs.

It’s the best he’s going to get and he gives a smile tight with contempt. 

“All right. Thank you, girls.” 

As he walks he looks to the side, eyesight unfocused on the tree lined field but his ears angled towards the girls. He catches someones rather snide remark.

“Maybe he should take a look in Lydia Martin's bed.” 

The girls break out into laughter.

He looks forward and returns to a disgruntled Allison. She’s standing with her arms crossed, glaring at him. He takes his last steps towards her quickly so there are millimetres between them and he speaks before she can.

“I need you to distract the principal for awhile.”

She narrows her eyes. Her chin has to tilt up in order to face him. There’s a fire in her eyes he hasn’t seen in years. Not since their explosive days when the hurt was fresh and feelings fierce. Instinctively it strikes a chord.

“Why?”

His fists punch into his jacket pockets and he meets her eye. He’s being a defensive shit and he knows it, but he does it anyway.

“I need her out of the office. Will you do it?” He challenges. 

He watches her silently debate.

“Fine.” She says shortly to show that she’s not happy about it as she marches off.

He turns and watches through windows as she approaches the principal. Through the cement and glass it’s impossible to see what they say, but soon enough the principal directs Allison out of the office with confident steps and proud lift of her shoulders. Allison catches his eye before she follows.

Derek exhales and his shoulders drop now that she’s out of sight. There’s no time to regret being an idiot, he tells himself, and rounds the corner to enter the building. He passes no one on the way to the principal's office. The desktop is unlocked. Within seconds he has Lydia Martins file open and hits the address onto a sticky note. He closes out of the programme and leaves. One of the administrative staff smiles at him. He doesn’t stop to return the gesture.

Five minutes pass before Allison walks through the double doors of the school and walks straight past him. He kicks off of the cold brick wall he’s been leaning on and follows her to the camaro.

“Did you have fun playing mission impossible?” She says in a huff that makes him itch to roll his eyes.

“Not over yet. Girls mentioned someone who might know more.”

She gives him an disapproving look with thin lips, but she doesn’t complain.

The house they park in front of is bland. He walks up the path and notices the recycling bin full of empty cans. A young woman yanks open the door with an expectant arch to her eyebrows.

“Yes?”

Derek tries for a smile.

“Hello, is Lydia Martin home?”

The woman stares blankly at him. 

“Who?”

Her curls bounce with every word she speaks like a cartoon. Derek shifts his weight, impatient. He recalls the numbers he saw on screen and glances surreptitiously at the numbers beside the door. They match. He’s certain enough not to check the sticky note he has jammed in his pocket.

“Lydia Martin? Teenager, student at Beacon Hills High?”

The woman shakes her head and her hair swings.

“No idea-“

“Who is it?” A male voice calls fiercely.

“None of your business, fatass!” The woman yells into the house. “No idea who you’re talking ‘bout. Bye.”

The door shuts inches from his face.

“Any luck?” Allison asks, perched against her car when he returns.

“No.” 

This is stupid. Jackson’s probably on a golf course somewhere laughing with old friends of his father and greasing palms. It should not be that hard to find him. He catches her glancing at her watch. She sees he’s caught her in the act and she grimaces.

“Matt. I have to be home before him.” 

And there she is. The timid Allison that calls him once a week, no more fire left in her.

He wants to ask. Wants to know why the fucker can’t make his own dinner for once. Wants to know why she always hangs up the phone as soon as she hears the door and never took him up on the offer of meeting in person. He lets a hot pebble of anger grow on his tongue and swallows it down, burning a path to his stomach. He nods and stares out at the road.

His keys crush into his hand as he rests his hand on the hood of his car, standing at the open driver door. With steady eyes he watches Allison hop into her own car and reverse down his driveway. As soon as her car turns the first corner he throws himself into the driver's seat. The tires of the camaro rip against the pavement as he tears the opposite way.

The school is quiet when he arrives. Classes have been let out in his absence, only stragglers left behind with their heads down in books or phones. He sits in the car and watches the windows. When no one passes for five minutes he gets out.

The receptionist notices him immediately with a smile.

“Are you back for the principal? I’m afraid she’s in a meeting with the staff.”

His face feels tight as he tries to smile back, slowing but not stopping.

“Must have dropped my sunglasses in her office, do you mind if I check for them?”

And he’s through the open office door before she can reply. He knocks the door closed behind him so it shields him from view and pulls open the student directory program he’d used previously to Lydia Martin’s files. His eyes jump around the screen, scanning for what he remembers seeing. 

Finally he locates the document, a copy of Mrs. Martin’s license with a photo of the woman who answered the door, and hits print. The noise of the machine firing up makes him glance at the door. When it stays closed he takes a deep breath. He exits the programme on the computer and steps away from the desk to nearly run into the principle as she enters the door.

“Oh, back again?”

It takes everything in him not to look at the paper sitting in the printing tray behind her. He can’t think of a single thing to say or do to distract her long enough to grab it.

“Sorry, ma’am. Thought I left my sunglasses behind.”

They share a moment of silent acknowledgement that he is still halfway behind the desk and his hands are empty.

“No luck,” he murmurs and walks past her out the door.

The receptionist's desk is in front of him, but there’s a small side hallway leading to more offices on his right. He ducks into one of the offices and watches. It doesn’t take long for his mind to catch up with his actions. What the fuck is he doing? Jackson Whittemore is not in his favour, and Danny wasn’t going to expect him to actually locate the jerk. His feet stay rooted where they are. He needs to know.

There are too many unanswered questions in his life, this one thing was supposed to be simple and he’s not going to walk away when the answer has to be close. So in the doorway of some Vice Principal’s office he lingers and waits for the Principal to walk out of her office with her nose in a stapled packet of papers.

Derek leaps out of hiding and swings into her office. It’s his lucky day because the paper on top of the printer is still face down and has the face of a woman who owes him answers on it. The heeled footsteps of the Principal head his way. He’s trapped. There is no way to explain this. The voice of the secretary chirps up and the steps falter outside the door. It buys him seconds. His eyes scan the room wildly for something, anything. The open window. 

Allison’s comment about Mission Impossible floats through his mind. He sighs deeply through his nose and starts towards it. He’s never going to tell her about the small adrenaline rush and how much, once he’s finally outside and out of danger of being caught, he might actually smile and hum the theme song back to his car. It takes herculean willpower not to rev the camaro as he pulls onto the street.

The woman gives him the same blank stare when she whips the door open. He holds up the piece of paper with her face on it.

“Lydia Martin. She was registered at the high school with your name on the registration, Mrs. Martin.” He addresses her pointedly.

“Who’s that?” The same man yells from inside.

“Not your fucking buisness.” 

She uses all of the hundred and ten pounds she has to push Derek back and slams the door behind her. She glares at him with piercing blue eyes. 

“Who do you think you are? Some meat head man that didn’t get his nuts off just right?”

His eyebrows skyrocket. She reflects his confusion when she notices his reaction.

“What, you the police or something?”

“No.”

She narrows her eyes at his flat answer. They’re at an impasse, he realizes. He doesn’t want to say more about why he’s here, and given her behaviour, neither does she. She steps back to the door.

“She doesn’t live here. That’s all you need to know.”

The door slams shut.

The paper crinkles in his fisted hands on his way back to the car. He’s about to throw it into the recycling bin on the curb when a photo he didn’t notice before catches his eye. His fingers pull it out smooth to show the header of the student file and a school photo in the top corner that must be Lydia Martin. She’s a redhead, hair longer than the girl he’s just spoken to and they look absolutely nothing alike. Bells go off. 

He looks closer at the grainy photo the size of his thumb nail. The Centre. When he met Stiles at the Centre he’d been talking with her before he talked to Derek. He needs to talk to Stiles.

He’s colliding with the ground before he knows he’s falling. His head snaps painfully back onto the grass and his chest seizes as the wind is knocked out of him. There’s a guy in a suit standing over him, but Derek can’t see him clearly due to the tears and lack of oxygen.

“Stay away from Lydia,” the guy growls.

Derek is left wheezing on the grass for minutes before he can sit up, exhausted and sore and still shaking from the surprise. On autopilot he gets to his car and struggles to remember what’s next.

Right.

“Find Stiles,” he mutters and nods to himself. He starts the car.

Halfway to the Centre he realizes he can’t remember why he’s going there. He pulls over. Patting his pockets he finds his phone and wallet are still on him, but the paper is gone. Fists clenched on the steering wheel he stews in frustration. There’s absolutely nothing. Maybe calling Stiles would jog his memory, but as he pulls out his phone he remembers what Allison told him this morning.

Stiles kept the secret. It doesn’t make a difference, he tries to tell himself, but there’s no way to know. Maybe if they’d told the truth it somehow would have helped them find Scott. Maybe they would have looked in the right spot. And if Allison had run off when Stiles showed up, that meant… Stiles was the last person to see Scott before he disappeared.

He can’t pinpoint the emotion he feels, but the glowing ember of rage becomes scorching in the pit of his stomach, heating his blood until it feels like lava boils in his veins. Grinding his teeth he whips the car into a u-turn and heads home, anticipating the satisfying slam of his feet on the treadmill.

x

“Detective,”

“Detective,” Noah parrots back without looking away from the screen.

“You owe me a hotdog dinner.”

Noah perks up immediately. “What? Where?”

He takes his glasses off, thin wiry things he’s constantly worried about breaking, and faces Parrish. On Parrish’s first day Noah had sworn nothing ever happened in this small town, and then they found a dead body, Parrish’s first. Noah had taken him out for a hotdog as compensation. It always worked to cheer up Stiles. Somehow it became tradition. A hotdog dinner meant a dead body.

Parrish puts his hands on his hips.

“You won’t believe this. Gerard Argents back lawn. Not much to go on yet, decomp was pretty far along, but by height they say an adult male.”

Noah frowns, names and numbers and facts floating around his head as he tries to sort them into an order that might make sense.

“What the heck is going on here?”

Parrish raises his arms in surrender. Noah turns back to the computer screen with a scowl. He’s been searching for the original copy of the Scott McCall files for so long his neck and shoulders are stiff. There was a transfer from paper to digital work base ten years ago and it’s not uncommon to find files that didn’t get transferred over. Especially cases considered closed.

“I’m going for a walk downstairs.” He checks his watch, “dinner at Mo’s in forty.” 

He shrugs on his jacket. The basement always had a bit of a chill.

The fluorescents are dim and buzz uncomfortably above him. The boxes are sagging with age and overloaded with papers. He grunts with effort as he shuffles the right one out and balances it on his raised knee in order to shuffle through and find the file. He slaps it on top of the box and he wobbles a bit, holding an awkward pose with the heavy box. He flips it open.

“Holy fu-”

The slam of the box hitting the ground drowns out everything else. Papers explode in a cloud of dust throughout the narrow alley he stands in. The Scott McCall file left in his wavering hand, page after page, is blank.

x 

Erica hesitates in front of the precinct. Officers come and go with morning coffees in their hands, chatting amiably or heads down and thinking. She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath of fresh air. She turns her head up and opens them to the blue blue sky. Deliberately stares at the sun and squints until she has to close her eyes again from the pain. After a deep breath she strides in confidently and asks for Noah Stilinski.

“He’s out on a call. Is there anything I can help you with, miss?”

It’s a stuttering halt to what she’d imagined. She hesitates, tongue heavy in her mouth, then shakes her head.

“No, I’ll wait.”

She’s only met Mr. Stilinski briefly on his visits to the Centre to see Stiles. He seemed nice. He had kind eyes. And he raised Stiles. That meant a lot more than anything else she knew about him. As one of the last choices of free will she had, she chose him.

So she sat in the squeaky vinyl chair across from the counter and stared at the speckled pattern of the linolyum on the floor and let it flood her entire vision and mind until nothing, not even the thought of what she was about to do, could whisper in her ear.

“Erica,”

She jumps. A ghost stands before her at the counter. He waves a reluctant older couple on, says he’ll meet them at the car, and she watches them go realizing they must be his parents. He looks solid. Not a ghost. Her throat constricts.

Boyd walks closer, glancing around before speaking lowly.

“Whatever you’re about to do,” he looks her in the eyes, “don’t.” he whispers urgently.

“But,” she gasps, unable to keep it in. How could he know?

He silences her with an adamant shake of his head. 

“He was a monster, and he’s dead. He deserved it, you don’t.”

He walks away in the direction his parents went, his eyes holding Erica’s until he pushes through the door and disappears into the streaming light from outside. Erica cracks. She spent years in a dark room with a collar on her neck. Freedom was promised for a price. Every breath of fresh air and day spent in the sun was in exchange for the suffering of others. 

She can still remember the day she helped him kidnap Boyd, five years ago. Five years of living in a brightly lit room on the second floor of the Centre while Boyd was locked in the garage.

She’s seen the news, she knows Gerard is dead. Dead. He’s not going to lock her up or force her to approach kids on the street. He told her it was the only way out and she’s been so desperate. She never, ever enjoyed it the way he did. How can Boyd understand that? She never had the chance to apologize and explain herself, how can he say she doesn’t deserve it if he doesn’t really know. She picks up her things and forces herself to leave without rushing. Maybe he can tell her how to forgive herself.

She walks the short way back to the Centre. It’s quiet during the weekday, most people out living their lives at school or work or generally being up to no good elsewhere. She walks up the worn stairs as familiar to her as breathing and heads towards her room. Fast footsteps on the stairs make her pause to see who it is. A girl comes around the corner, familiar for the wrong reason.

“Kaitlyn,” She says to the girl storming down the hall, “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.”

The girl doesn’t stop until she’s reached Erica. She’s expecting a slap to the face or punch to the gut, not the knife that pierces through her skin. She can’t breathe.

“You two faced bitch!” Kaitlyn yells.

Instinctively Erica pushes at the girl but she’s faster and stronger and the pain starts to cripple her every time the burning knife enters her body. The assault ends without her noticing, at some point she’d fallen to the floor. She hears the rush of footsteps on the stairs. She hears Stiles calling her name. There’s blood all over him. He might be speaking but it doesn’t matter because she needs to tell him. She needs to.

“I helped him. The kids. I helped Gerard.”

Her lips are numb, she can’t tell if they’re actually forming the words, she can’t be sure there’s even a voice coming from her throat, but she needs to tell him, so she keeps talking. She talks until her lungs cut out while she tries say his name. His hands are so warm on her face.

x 

“No, no, no, Erica! Fuck, Erica come on.”

His body feels electric. Every nerve ending tingles like he’s immersed in arctic water. Erica’s blood burns his skin. It slides under his hands as he taps away on his phone and rambles off the address between gasps of air. Erica’s eyes are closed. His body keeps convulsing every few seconds. He realizes he’s sobbing when the paramedics arrive and throw a shock blanket at him. 

He tries to wipe his face and it comes away pink. Erica’s blood is everywhere. He scrambles away from the crush of people gathering at the spectacle and gets into his jeep to follow the sirens. His fingers catch his eyes curled around the steering wheel. They are covered in blood.

He replays the last thing she said through the blood choking her.

“I deserve it.”

His fingers tighten.

x

Allison taps her foot on Derek's doorstep. She’s not a hundred percent sure why she suggested meeting up after Matt went to play poker with his friends, but after a day spent with someone who wasn’t a work colleague she found herself calling him. Now she’s here, and the door opens. She checks over her shoulder before ducking in beside him.

“Hey,” She greets and slips off her ballet slipper shoes.

He greets her back and they naturally drift into the kitchen. He presses a glass of burgundy into her hands and they lean against his island counter.

“Did you find the girl?”

His face darkens in a scowl. 

“No. No girl, no Jackson, no Scott.”

Allison flinches at the name and takes a sip. 

“Maybe you have too much going on. Tell Jackson’s friend he’s not here, it’s not your responsibility to track him down. You’re not the police.”

Derek grinds his teeth and she has to bite back a chiding comment about his dentist that she used to tease him with when they were younger.

“Like they’re any better at finding people,” he growls. 

It’s maybe unfair, but no less true. Allison picks at a string on her shirt. 

“Have… ” her voice catches and she ducks her head to clear it and try again, “have you heard anything more about Scott?”

“No.”

They sit in silence. She sips her wine.

“Have you talked to Stiles lately?” She asks. 

It’s been on her mind since she told Derek the truth. She knows him well enough to know he’ll be angry at Stiles too, she’s been wondering if she should have warned Stiles about it. She hasn’t spoken to him since the ill-fated coffee with Erica, worried about what the girl would say to him about it.

“No.” Derek says sourly, “Stiles can fuck off.”

“Derek,” she sighs.

“He’s the reason I’m in this mess! He left Scott alone, he lied to the police, he’s the reason-” he catches himself.

Allison furrows her brows, because he’s gesturing between them and she doesn’t understand. 

“He’s the reason what?” 

Derek turns his back and leans over the sink. She watches his back, her mind racing, trying to connect dots she can’t even find. 

“Derek,” she demands with heat but his back stays motionless. “What the hell are you saying? That Stiles is the reason Scott’s gone?”

“No,” he burst. 

His fists are solid white where they grind against the marble countertop. Still he won’t look at her. 

“Stiles is… he’s the reason I’m… I broke up with you.”

The admission knocks her off balance, her head feels like a wind turbine that’s been kicked. Derek slumps his shoulders. Like peering through murky water she sees the dots. Memories start to spin the connection. Stiles answered Derek’s phone one night, walking into a room and the two of them going silent, finding them past out on a couch together in an embrace she’d thought cute at the time. Now she remembers the way they had sprung apart. Like they’d been caught.

“You and… Stiles?”

She doesn’t quite remember the exact amount of years she spent with Derek, the line between when they were friends and when they started dating was always blurred, and they broke up explosively, drawn out into weeks of arguing and name calling that she retrospectively realised was a way for them to still be in each others lives. They haven’t gone a month without talking since they met. Meanwhile Stiles had been silent, watching from a distance. Not as distant as she’d thought, obviously.

“We weren’t... “ Derek motions with his hands, facing her but not meeting her eye. “It was only a few times, not that it makes it any better, I’m sorry.”

Allison knows seven years ago she would have thrown it in his face. She would lay into him with everything she had. Now she picks up her wine glass and swallows it all. She reaches across the table and takes the bottle, emptying it into her glass. Her wedding ring catches the overhead light as she pours. It’s been seven years. She has a husband and a mortgage and a car and she’s fine.

It doesn’t matter that her husband is controlling her to death, or that she’s dependent on him to pay the mortgage and the car, and she hasn’t been fully sober since she received a phone call from Noah Stilinski.

“Somedays I hate him,” She says into her wine glass.

“Stiles?”

She laughs humorlessly.

“Scott.” 

The name on her lips is instantly sobering, her tongue suddenly feeling incredibly candour. 

“At first I tried to repay the memory of him by taking care of you. Now, I’ve spent the past seven years trying to ignore the way it’s tightening around my neck, like I can hardly breathe. I close my eyes and all I see is him crying on the ground.”

Derek doesn’t say anything. She takes another sip of her wine.

She wakes up the next morning with a familiar headache in an unfamiliar place. Slowly she slumps up to find Derek’s couch beneath her, the man in question passed out in the armchair across from her. Gingerly she straightens her hair and clothes as best she can without a mirror and slips her shoes back on and out the door. In the car she pulls out one of the mini-bottles of liquor to ease the headache.

She unlocks her front door slowly, her shoes already off so she can pad through the halls without a sound. The bedroom is empty when she arrives and she deflates. Matt must already be at work. Her stuff bounces on her bed and she turns to the en suite, answering the siren song of a hot shower. She lets out a groan of relief as the steaming hot water hits her skin and the heat of it soaks into her muscles.

The shower curtains fly open. A small scream escapes her at the sound and she holds her arms over her breasts. A red faced Matt stares at her.

“Where the hell were you?”

“At Derek’s.” She says before she can realizes how stupid it is to admit.

Matt’s face grows a deeper shade. 

“You spent the night at your ex boyfriends house? How stupid do you think I am?”

Water rolls into her eyes as he speaks and she squints, the headache that had started to recede in the steam is now back full blown. One bottle was clearly not enough.

“Can we do this later, please?”

“Why? Haven’t finished washing his cum off yet?” He spits at her and slams the door behind him.

The words shock her frozen.

x

When Derek walks into the living room and finds the couch empty he can’t name the feeling.

After the break up with Allison he violently shifted between quick casual sex and strict denial. Danny was the last person he’d been with, and his reappearance in his life, along with being around Stiles and Allison again, brought a lot his old confusion back.

After a few glasses of wine and binging on dark chocolate chips he had hiding away in his cupboard Allison had blown his mind. She sat up with him for hours, talking about sex and romance and gender and every variable under the sun. Derek didn’t add much to the conversation, Allison completely came to life while talking about it and he had a hard enough time trying to keep track of everything. 

She admitted it was part of a class she’d taken in school and Derek wondered why she was still working as a clinic secretary when she was obviously so impassioned about the medical field she’d studied when they were together. When the talking exhausted her to snoring into a throw pillow Derek lay awake for a long time and forced himself to admit things he never wanted to when he was a bullheaded frat boy.

Other than the hangover the sugar and alcohol left him with, he feels something like calm when he wakes up. He hasn’t felt it in a long time.

It doesn’t last. By the time he’s swallowed down a cold breakfast there’s an itch growing. He drops his dishes in the sink and put a name to it. Screw Jackson, he needs to find Scott. As much as he doesn’t want to face it, his best bet is working with Stiles to do so. The thought of facing him after looking in the mirror and admitting to himself how shitty of a person he used to be about everything is uncomfortable at best.

The Centre is quiet when he arrives. Unlike the last time he visited the common room is all but deserted. Luckily he recognizes the only face left.

“Isaac?”

The boy looks over the pages of his book with a bland look. His eyes are red rimmed and bruised. There’s a cut on his lip.

“Where’s Stiles?”

The boy shrugs. 

“Most likely the hospital still. Someone attacked Erica in the hallway.” Suddenly the empty chairs that surround them make sense. Derek is about to leave when Isaac says, “Whatever you’re looking for, he’s not interested.”

The comment gives Derek whiplash. There’s a smirk on the kids marked face like he knows he’s hit a bullseye. The cockiness of it grates on Derek’s already jostled nerves, so he pushes back.

“Present from a client?” He growls. Isaacs glare turns to ice. With a loud scrape of metal on linoleum Derek sits at the table. “I assume that’s how you knew Aiden. You fit the look.”

Isaac’s book drops to the table unceremoniously so nothing but the table stands between them. He arches an eyebrow.

“Seems you’re not the only one into underage boys.”

Derek freezes. It was stupid of him to assume Stiles would hold his tongue, when all he’s ever been known to do is talk. He wonders how many people know. How many have looked at Derek and known they had a past. The thought eats at him, just as Isaac wanted it to. The boy smirks.

“He didn’t tell me, Derek. He didn’t have to.” It’s a merciful admittance, but no less alarming.

Derek struggles to push past it and keep his voice steady. 

“Where did Aiden do business?”

Isaac tilts back in his chair and Derek waits to be told to fuck off.

“There’s a shitty motel.” 

Isaac lets his chair drop and leans in, his face clearing of the mask he’d been holding on to. Without it he looks tired.

Derek has Isaac type out the address on his phone and pins it on google maps. It takes nearly an hour to drive there. On the road he thinks about Isaac. The kids living one step off the street and Derek wonders how the hell he gets out to the motel on his own. 

The app says it would take nearly two hours of biking to get there. Considering what Isaac would be doing, Derek can’t see a two hour ride very practical after a night of working. Which means Isaac must get in a car. Presumably a stranger's car. And he has to trust them to drive exactly where he says to go. Not turn down the dusty side roads. Not throw him in a ditch on the freezing cold nights, not leave him with eyes vacantly staring at the stars. The pebble in Dereks stomach burns.

Derek slams on his breaks in the parking lot and cranks the emergency break up. He tries calling Stiles, for whatever the fuck reason, but only receives an automated message that the voice inbox is full so he can’t even leave a message. He stares at the ugly facade of the motel. He can’t say he knows what he’s looking for here. 

Maybe it’s stupid. It is stupid. But Scott’s blood was in the same room as a prostitute. It’s not ridiculous to think he might have been in the room at the same time, and he might cross paths with people of the same nature frequently. There’s no one thing he’s looking for here, he just needs to find something.

Even with this desire, it shocks him when he comes across it. He’s stomped past every door and peered through the sheer curtains at glimpses of lives very different from his own. Some are vacant. Some are shut up tight. One has something dark staining the curtains. It could be mud, could be wine. Could be blood. The door is unlocked and Derek doesn’t hesitate to open it, but the sight is enough to stop him from taking a single step forward.

Blood covers every surface. Pools on the rumpled bedspread and splashes on the walls and curtains. A trail leading in and out of the washroom. It ends abruptly in a neat line at Derek’s feet, still wet. From his place in the hall he can’t see a body. Or smell one. He takes out his phone with an uneasy feeling about how he’s going to explain what lead him to finding the room.

There’s nothing to hint Scott’s involved with this, but the way things have been going it feels too big to be a coincidence.

x

Summer markets are a bit kitschy, but you can’t find better lettuce in any grocery store and Melissa surprisingly has the day off, so she browses the produce slowly and enjoys the fresh air in the park. Maybe she’ll invite Derek over for dinner tonight, make his favourite taco dish. It’s been awhile since he’s been by.

“Please? Mom, you promised!”

Melissa turns at the whining, faded memories making her smile in amusement at the brat tugging on his mother’s hand. She takes her change from the vendor.

“What did I say?” 

Melissa looks back at the harsh voice. The mother has the poor kids arm twisted in a tight grip and yanks him close. 

“No more. What’s the problem with you? Huh?”

The tone isn’t just scolding, it’s scathing. The kid looks close to tears.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Melissa says before she can think it through. The woman spares her a glance but doesn’t release her hold. “He only wanted a chocolate. No need to hurt him.”

“Who the fuck are you to tell me how to parent?” The mother spits while the boy's arm is turning red where her hand is holding him. Melissa feels a switch inside her turn on.

“You’re hurting him.” She says matter-of-factly.

The mother scoffs, “He’s fine.”

He’s not fine. He’s a beautiful little boy who should be cherished and spoiled. Melissa could do better. She would have done better.

“Ma’am, it’s child abuse.”

The woman steps towards her. Melissa hears the slap before she feels it. Slowly she turns her head back to face this crazed bitch. A haze of adrenaline fuels her in a way she hasn’t felt since team sports in school and she headbuttst the other woman. The crowd of people are quick to pull them from each other before another blow can land.

Jordan Parrish accompanies the responding officer.

“Melissa!” He jogs past the ambulance where they’re attending to the other mother and up to Melissa’s side. He looks between the two women, confused.

“I did something stupid,” she sighs.

Inside she knows she would do it again. Even if the lady presses charges. There’s a bruise starting to bloom on the little boy’s arm that makes her wish she could do more.

Jordan tells her Noah would have come, but there was a new crime scene and the paperwork was chaining him down. When she asks if it has to do with Scott she’s not sure what she wants the answer to be.

Jordan shakes his head. 

“Doesn’t look like it. There was a lot going on in that room, but I think it’s an unrelated drug deal gone wrong or something.”

Disappointment swells. She used to know what happened. His story had a villain, Kate Argent, and as horrible as it was, his death brought closure. Now she doesn’t know if there are any answers and every little boy she sees strikes the same thought: She could have done better.

“I want to know why she said it.” She says while wiping the blood from her forehead.

Parrish scrunches his face in confusion. “Who, the lady?”

The adrenaline of the recent fight has filled Melissa with fire. She’s tired of being the weeping woman, the poor mother, and for the first time her heart doesn’t skip a beat when she says his name.

“No. Kate Argent. I want to know why she lied about killing Scott.”

x 

Noah Stilisnki hates this room, hates it probably as much as anyone else who’s ever been in an interrogation room, but Melissa was insistent and he wasn't about to let her come down here herself. He doesn’t need another murder, his gut is starting to feel soft from the number of recent hotdogs. The woman across from him smiles.

“Recent evidence suggests Scott McCall is not deceased. There was no concluding evidence for his death other than your confession, which leads me to wonder why you would give a false confession of murder.”

“What an interesting game to play,” she smiles lazily, her legs are as spread as they can get chained to the floor. “Are you really this bored?”

“You didn’t kill him Kate.” He states loudly.

Her chains and fists slam onto the mettle table when she hunches over it and leans as close as she can get.

“He cried for his mother the whole time. Begged for his brother. Even asked for you, Mr. Stilisnki.” 

She says his name in the high pitch imitation of a child and the hair on Noah’s arms raises. How could she know if she didn’t do it. That’s what gets him. Because she’s always known the names Scott would say, has pointed his picture out from a selection, knew the exact area he went missing from. Maybe she’d looked it up or read it in the papers. To remember them this long?

“There’s another reason we came for a visit,” Parrish says when Noah fails to keep pushing. Kate tilts her head in exaggerated intrigue. “Your father is dead.”

Kate laughs unsteady with shifting eyes. 

“Nice try, detectives. I don’t know how you thought that would work for you-“

“Kate.” Noah cuts her off. He’s so tired of her drabble. “He was kidnapping teenagers from the street. Someone murdered him over it.”

Her smile turns into a snarl

“No!” 

Her chains rattle when she pushes against them, straining and rebelling.

“No!” She yells again, but this time it sounds more like a whine of a petulant child.

“Why did you lie, Kate?” He insists.

Her eyes are crazed when they meet his. 

“Rot in hell, you Polski mutt.”

They try for a little longer, but receive nothing more than threats and curses until they realise she’s lost what little rationality she used to possess and leave her to the madness.

The rest of the day is a game of cat and mouse, but the cat is twenty years too late to find any trace the mouse might have left. He and Parrish leave late without getting dinner.

Stiles is sleeping on the couch when he gets in. He’s rubbing his eyes and sitting up when Noah is unlacing his boots and notices him.

“Dad?”

“Hey kiddo,” he sets his boots aside.

It’s been a long time since Stiles has come back to the house. If he’s honest, Noah would say he selfishly wishes it were more often. The boy hasn’t been calling him like he usually does, if Noah weren’t so busy he would have paid him a visit sooner. He doesn’t ask what’s keeping Stiles up. He knows. It’s the same reason there’s three quarters missing from his bottle of JD. He slumps into the armchair.

He loves his son. He knows his son.

“Stiles,” And he hates that. Hates the tone he defaults to with him. This weary drag curling in his throat like disappointment, but it’s not Stiles he’s disappointed in, never has been. “I trust you, so I let things slide. I’m not oblivious.”

Stiles doesn’t look at him. They’ve never spoken about it. The anonymous tips his coworkers receive, the information that appears right when they’re about to give up on a case, information that legally couldn’t be proven. He’s allowed himself to live in the grey zone of plausible deniability by never shining a light on it.

“Something’s missing. Has been missing for a long time, I suspect.” 

He edges on saying it out loud. The words don’t fit in his mouth. He waits. It becomes clear that Stiles isn’t going to say anything. 

“Scott’s file.” 

Goddamnit Stiles.

“It’s upstairs,” Stiles says to the window. 

He clears his throat in a way that tells Noah there’s more. He waits. 

“With mom’s.”

Pale moonlight silhouettes his boy alone on a couch he bought specifically because it would hold three. The harsh light is not kind to the creases under his eyes and the soft impressions already lining his face. He’s old. When did his boy get so old? When did he stop being a boy?

Noah tips his head back to look at the ceiling, past it through Stiles bedroom, to the third floor full of dust and bones. He imagines he hears the floorboards creak under the weight of their ghosts.

x

She rolls her neck out, trying to release the ache a poor night's sleep left her while she finishes up the dishes.

“You’re being selfish.” Her husband says around a mouthful of omelette. “It’s not a complicated situation.”

“We’re friends, Matt.”

“You have other friends! Ones you don’t have a history of sleeping with.”

She rolls her eyes. A mistake.

“Allison!” He yells and throws his dishes into the sink. 

She winces at the noise of something breaking and the soapy water that slops onto her clothes. 

“I’m not a joke, I’m your husband. I’ve provided you a house and a car, I supported you through school. It’s only fair you support me back.” 

She stays silent, waiting for the sink to drain so she can collect the pieces of the broken dish. When he speaks next his voice is low and soft. 

“I love you. I know you love me, I’m just asking for you to show it.” 

He puts a hand on her face, tucks a strand behind her ear, then the moment is over and he grabs his jacket off the back of the chair. 

“Stop seeing Hale. I mean it.”

The front door closes behind him and the sound echoes around her beautiful, empty house.

She cleans until there’s no sign that breakfast ever happened and pulls out a new outfit from her closet full of elegant things. They used to be in love. Or something like it, she’s sure. The grandmother that raised her passed shortly after Derek left, and Matt was right there, warm hugs and soft smiles when offering her a place to stay until she sorted things out. She never left.

She calls the clinic where nothing new has come up and she tells them her vacation is going well. Yes, Hawaii is beautiful. Yes, the weather has been lovely. No, haven’t been to the volcano yet. Soon.

She gets in the car with no destination and ends up on Derek’s street. She parks a few houses down and walks. The sun is high and warm and glints off of a powerful muscle car gliding by. It’s eye-catching, she watches it’s unbelievable path to Derek’s driveway. A handsome man gets out. He pushes expensive sunglasses onto his forehead with a glistening watch on his wrist. He walks with a smoothness Allison has only seen from predator cats on the nature channel. 

The door opens. Allison can’t see Derek from where she’s been struck still on the sidewalk, but the man’s face blooms an impossibly white smile before he steps in and the door closes behind him.

She can’t say why she does it. Maybe it’s jealously flaring up. Maybe it’s simple rabid curiosity. Maybe, and most likely, she’s trying to forget the gross feeling lingering on her ever since Matt touched her this morning. She walks up the side of Derek’s house and pulls herself over his fence with a running jump and dexterity she hasn’t used since high school track and field practice. 

Her landing is rough and unbalanced but she manages not to make too much noise or fall on her face so it’s a success. Most of the side windows are dark or frosted for privacy, but the back door to the patio has a clear view to the kitchen. Luckily, the two men are gathered there, habitually gravitating to food like the prime mammals they are.

It’s hard to tell from behind the neatly pruned shrubs lining the yard, but Derek looks happy. Comfortable, even, with this man. They’re both smiling and, good god, Derek looks down and he might actually be blushing when the guy pats his shoulder jokingly. Allison wouldn’t have understood it before, but now she sees it. The way Derek’s body tilts towards him, the way he doesn’t stop looking when they’re talking. 

He’s… interested in this guy. Sexually. From the way the guy looks at Derek when he bends down at the fridge to grab something, the feeling is mutual. Allison feels like she’s been knocked on the head and daydreaming. It’s one thing to be told her ex-boyfriend is a gay man. It’s another to witness it. Has it always been this blatant? Did she miss it all those years ago when it was really this obvious? Perhaps it’s better not to know.

She tugs on her sleeves absently as she thinks it over. She should leave. She’s going to leave.

Both men turn their heads so suddenly it makes her stop and keep watching. They’re looking at the front door. Derek’s frowning. Allison holds her breath when he starts walking down the hall, towards the door, and her stomach sinks. Derek barely has his hand on the door handle before it flies open and forces him back to reveal Matt. 

Allison swears under her breath. Everything is muffled sounds from so far away but Allison can guess what he’s yelling about. He’s looking around, eyes wild, and she knows it’s in search of herself. Her car is only down a block, he probably passed it on his way here. What an idiot she is. What an asshole he is.

Matt’s charged his way inside, and she prays he’s still there and far enough away from the open front door that he isn’t able to see her mad dash across the yard. She doesn’t look back until she slips into the driver seat and starts the engine. The sidewalk is still clear when she pulls away.

x

It takes longer than he’d like to get Allison’s psychopath of a husband out of his house. The guy keeps insisting she’s hidden away, and they’re having an affair, and he’s known all along so don’t think you’ve gained anything on me Derek Hale. Danny is the only reason it doesn’t turn into a physical altercation. His voice cuts through Matt’s heated demand to see the garage.

“Hey shithead, the last person to fuck Derek definitely had more dick than Allison.”

That breaks things up pretty quickly. Derek’s not exactly happy Danny had to say it like that, but it does the trick of shutting Matthew up. A few nasty words on his way out and he’s gone. Derek apologizes to Danny, both for the intrusion and the lack of Jackson related information he has. He falters on telling him about the reopening of Scott’s case, unsure if it’ll be more distraction than relevant, so he stays quiet about it. He mentions the girl, Lydia, and the colleagues mismatching stories. Danny takes the lack of anything in stride.

“It was a shot in the dark. I had a feeling I’d have to come drag his ass out of whatever hole he’s fallen into. Think I’ll have to start looking at hospitals, lock ups, and long lost relatives now.”

They part amiably with a hug that feels warm and is longer than it might need to be. It’s been a long time since he’s had sex, or even thought about pursuing it. Having Danny around brought back a lot of memories, and unlike the previous times he thought about it, he didn’t automatically push against them until they were smothered with denial.

After it closes Derek stares at the back of the door. Silence presses on him, makes his fingers twitch, his jaw clench. There’s nothing he can do about Scott’s case, the cops don’t even think the scene in the motel is related despite what his gut was telling him, and his mom was back to working. Finding Jackson is something he can actually do, and none of It fits. The girl disappearing at the same time, her false records, the guy that attacked him. He needs to find that girl. Lydia.

Students are everywhere when he arrives back at the school. It must be a break between classes. They mingle in clumps and migrate in herds, making it hard to recognize them as individuals. He catches sight of a familiar curly haired brunette. It’s one of the girls he spoke with before standing in a cluster of others he could maybe recognize if he tried, but this particular girl looks like Melissa in the family photo book he used to flip through as a kid, and it’s easy to pick her out. It takes a moment for a script to come to him, some lines so cliche he’s heard them a thousand times on television and greats the group as a whole.

“Hi, we spoke earlier about one of your professors. Unfortunately I believe his disappearance and Lydias may be connected. She could be in serious trouble, do you have any information concerning her location?” 

The smile he uses is the same one he pulls out when meeting a client for the first time. It doesn’t get them talking. 

“Did she mention anything the last time you saw her?” he prompts.

“Lydia was an ice queen extraordinaire. Anything she shared had a price, including conversation.” One of the girls says. 

She gathers her bag and walks away, the rest of the pack following, some slower and even with apologetic smiles. Halfway back to his car someone grabs at his arm.

“Hey,” it’s the girl with the curly hair. “I think you’re right, about Lydia.” Her eyes shift around like she’s looking for someone, never quite making contact with his. “Can you help her?”

“Yes.” He says because it’s the only answer that’s going to work.

The girl twists her backpack straps on her shoulders before she steps into him so they’re almost touching. This time she looks him in the eye.

“I know where she is.”

She takes him to an apartment block that would be improved only by knocking it down and starting over. The smell alone makes Derek’s throat close to ward off gagging. The girl that opens the door is pristine. Her hair spills in soft waves to her waist, she’s wearing jewellery Derek could buy a yacht with and her clothes are cut in the simple exact lines Derek sees in court on well paying clients. Her makeup and the way she moves could be affecting his perception, but put side by side she doesn’t look much older than the curly haired girl hugging her. I’ve seen her before, he realizes. Without the glam and the silk, in a place that doesn’t look much different than this.

“Lydia,” Her eyes are piercing on his, sharp enough to skin him alive. He straightens his shoulders in an effort to look unaffected. “I’m a friend of Stiles. May I come in?”

He should have known Stiles would be tangled in this. Where the fuck has he been, anyway?

She doesn’t widen the door like he’d hoped, in fact she leans into it and blocks the way entirely.

“What’s his real name?” 

Her voice is stiff through a clenched jaw. Derek can feel his face press into confusion until he sees the way she’s effectively blocking the other girl from him and he probably couldn’t reach for the door before she slammed it shut if he tried. It’s a system, a smart one.

“Mieczyslaw.”

Her eyes widen. “Can you take me to him?” 

The waver in her voice reveals what her polished exterior has hidden. There’s tremor to her lips, a wetness in her eyes, a tremble in her hand. She’s terrified.

Lydia tells him to wait in the car while she changes. When she comes out her friend splits off in the direction of the school and Lydia is wearing torn jeans and a t-shirt, her locks tangled in a messy bun look Allison used to favour in university and her face is wiped clean of makeup, skin shiny and red from where she’s rubbed at it.

“Staring is rude.” She says when she buckles into the passenger side. 

Derek turns to the road and mentally plans the route he’ll take to the Centre. It’s rough and he’s only thirty percent sure it’s going to get him anywhere near where he wants to be, but he hasn’t exactly made a habit of being in this neighbourhood.

“Do you know where Jackson Whittemore is?” he asks two blocks into the drive, he can only hold his tongue for so long.

Lydia sighs, “I told him too much. He’s got such a temper.”

He downshifts roughly for a red light. 

“That’s not an answer.”

“No, not anymore. He got upset when I told him about having to lay low after Aiden… after he died.”

Derek glances at her quickly before he shifts back up on the green.

“Why are you hiding?”

She rolls her eyes, “Jeesus, has Stiles told you anything? Aiden gave me the Nematon because he knew Alpha Tech would track him down for it. Which they did, obviously. There’s no way to know if Aiden told them anything, so I had to cut off with Jackson incase they come after me.” She shakes her head and purses her lips, “Jax is like a dog that bites and gets offended when you hit back. He was pissed, said he was going to sort it out. Somehow he managed to set up a meeting with an Alpha Tech rep at some shitty motel, but he never called after.”

Dread settles into Derek’s limbs and makes his tongue heavy. He clears his throat.

“When was this?”

She looks out the window. “Two days ago.”

Fuck. His fingers curl tightly over the steering wheel until they’re marble white. Motel California, room 708, blood. A shit ton of blood. He remembers making the call. He looks at her profile while she looks out the window. She’s so young. He’ll leave breaking the news for Stiles, he deals with kids everyday.

The Centre is quiet. Isaacs table is empty so Derek is forced to approach a new face on the couch. They tell him Stiles is probably upstairs in his office. It’s weird, hearing the words office and Stiles in the same sentence. It forces Derek to remember that in some aspects, most even, Stiles isn’t the kid Derek keeps thinking he is.

There’s no door so he knocks on the trim to get his attention. Stiles glances at him over a laptop and the brim of glasses Derek has never seen on him before. He loses his train of thought at the sight of them.

“Hey.”

Derek swallows. “Lydia Martin is in my car.”

Stiles eyes go impossibly wide behind the lenses before he jumps up and they fall off in his scramble to shove on a sweatshirt. His shoulder shoves Derek out of the doorway. Derek mutters a curse and jogs after the flailing man through the hall and down the stairs.

“Why the fuck would you bring her here? Do you have any idea…”

Derek doesn’t hear the rest when Stiles shoves the main entrance double doors open. Derek’s car sits right in front where he parked it. The passenger door hangs wide open, the vehicle empty. Stiles pulls at his hair with both hands.

“Fuck! Fucking shit, Derek.” His voice breaks as he yells.

Derek feels numb, his eyes staring hard at the car like it’ll reveal Lydia if he doesn’t look away.

“She wanted to see you,” he says, feeling stupid. 

He was in the building for less than five minutes.Stiles turns on him with wet eyes and rage, his mouth in a snarl he opens to lash out. A white van slams on the breaks behind him and honks the horn before he can. Derek blinks. Twice. Sitting in the driver's seat is Aiden Zwilling.

“I know where they took her,” The dead man says.

Derek looks at Stiles, who is already climbing into the open door of Derek’s car. Derek hurries to join him and follow the van. The spiral logo of Alpha Tech stares back at him from the back door of the van.

“Only because your car is faster,” Stiles mutters as he buckles in.

Derek drives wildly behind the van. It feels good to drive like this, to use the car to its full capabilities in a way he’s never had reason or time to do.

“Jackson Whittemore is dead,” he blurts.

“No, he’s not.” Stiles counters.

“Stiles,” he insists exasperated, “I saw a crime scene. He’s de-“

“You don’t know shit about it Derek. Keep your mouth shut.” The fierceness of the words grinds against him and he stares disbelieving at Stiles.

“You think you can tell me what to do? You think-“

He sees the oncoming car with seconds to spare and jerks back into his lane behind the white van, speeding past the horn blaring car that skids behind him. He can feel Stiles glaring at him and his jaw ticks when he grinds his teeth. They stay silent for the rest of the tire squealing drive, through the edges of town and into a high end residential area with sprawling mansions and acres between property lines.

The van pulls over on a street smack in the middle of a forested area. There’s nothing but a two lane road and trees any way they look. Stiles jumps out of the car before Derek has time to cut the engine or question who they’ve actually been following.

“The back gate is a hundred yards ahead,” Aiden says and points in the right direction, tells them what to look for, and spews a string of numbers Stiles somehow manages to repeat back to him with confidence. “The moment I enter the front door is your best time to come in the back. Stay out of sight until you see the van drive in. Either she gets to the front and in the van or out the back and to your car.” 

He hops in the van and drives off.

“Can you explain to me how I just had a conversation with a dead man?”

Stiles is quiet as they march steadily down the road, his eyes downcast and brow furrowed in focus. 

“That’s not Aiden.” Derek glares at him to explain as Stiles waves at his face. “Aiden had a mole on his ear, and his face was rounder. It must be a twin.”

Derek stares him down for the ridiculous notion. This is not some spy thriller, plot twist twins do not just show up at random.

“I’m serious.” Stiles insists.

Derek humours the thought, but he can’t make any sense of it no matter how he aligns it all; a dead man’s twin, a teenage girl wearing pearls, a missing professor, a room full of blood. And still, somehow, Scott.

“What are we walking into?” Stiles doesn’t look at him. “I can’t believe you dragged me into this.”

“I dragged you? Who was the one to bring her out of a perfectly good safe house? Who’s been asking all the questions and sticking their nose into places it shouldn’t be?”

“If it concerns Scott it concerns me.”

“What if it’s Scott holding a gun to Lydia’s head?” There’s a glint in Stiles’ eyes. “What if he points the gun at me? At you? Have you thought about that, tough guy?”

“Scott wouldn’t…”

“You don’t know that!” Stiles’ voice echoes in the trees and Derek glances nervously around them, pulled back to the reality of their surroundings.

“No,” he says subdued. “I don’t.”

Scott was five when he went missing. They’d been brothers for three years and Derek was there on his first day of kindergarten and the first time he had ice cream. He remembers trying to pretend otherwise, but he always navigated himself to be next to Scott when they crossed the street so the kid would hold his hand with blind trust. 

He looks at Stiles out of the corner of his eye. The thought of Scott holding a gun to Stiles shakes him to his very core. As much as he remembers Scott in nostalgic sepia tones, he remembers Stiles in vivid technicolor. The feel of his body pressed against a wall. How he laughs with his head tilted back and mouth wide open when he means it. Hearing his name whispered like a prayer. Pressed to choose between the two, Derek doesn’t have an automatic answer, and that chills him.

The thick imposing gate slides open under Stiles’ quick fingers and reveals a stunning house of glass and concrete. Quickly they jog towards one of the corners and lay flat against a cement wall to avoid detection. Stiles edges towards the window of what Derek thinks might have been the living room.

“Seeing Aiden number two won’t be an issue,” Stiles mutters. Derek peers around his shoulder and sees straight through the entire place.

From their corner of an empty living room the front door was a glass panel on the other side of a long hall, and on the other side of the couch was a decadent kitchen holding three men and Lydia. She stands between them all by the island counter with her head held high in her ratty clothes. The man across from her is easily the owner of the house. A luxurious fine knit sweater and the caramel tone of his skin makes him a model of modern luxury.

“Hey,” Stiles elbows him, “it’s that guy. The not-Scott guy.” 

Derek looks at the henchmen and recognizes one as the man from the hospital, standing with his arms crossed by the stainless steel fridge behind everyone else. 

“Dad said he gave them a fake ID and the slip.”

There’s nothing to go on for the third guy because his back is turned to them. His hair is dark brown. Derek stares at the back of his head, waiting for him to shift or cough or do something if only so he could get a glimpse of his face.

“Here we go.” 

Stiles’ mutter draggs Derek’s attention away from the faceless man towards the door where Aiden-number-two is clearly seen coming up the walkway. There’s a patio set on the concrete slab behind the living room, but the whole wall is nothing but glass.

“Where’s the door?” 

His eyes search fervently for anything that looks like break in the glass. Aiden-number-two was steps away from the front door, they had seconds. He looks at Stiles and saw his fingers tapping quickly on his cuffs.

“There,” and he jumps up, leaving Derek behind to scramble after him. 

Somehow Stiles pushes the right spot in the glass wall for it to silently hinge open. They slip in just as Not-Chris opens the front door for Aiden-number-two. Fuck. Maybe this is some spy-thriller shit. Stiles instantly drops behind the couch, but Derek hangs back behind the stacked slate chimney and listens.

“Fuck off, Deucalion.”

“Lydia,” a thick European accent demands, “I’m not asking again.”

Derek peers around the edge of the stone to see the older gentlemen, Deucalion, holding out a hand, the other on his hip. Lydia opens her mouth just as yelling from the front door calls everyone’s attention to the two men wrestling there. It happens quickly. Deucalion barely moves his hand and the seconds it takes for Derek to realize it’s got a gun in it are all it takes before the sound of a shot cracks the air.

“Agh fuck!”

“Ethan. So nice of you to join us.”

The twin, Ethan, is grasping at his thigh. It bleeds sluggishly, must be a lucky miss of anything vital. Another shot cracks the air and Not-Chris drops. When he falls Derek can see a hole piercing his temples.

Stiles lets out a yelp. The faceless man is hauling him from his cover behind the couch and alarmingly close to the maniac with a gun. Every nerve in Derek is electrified, paralyzed with indecision and blood pound through his skull.

Deucalion tuts. “What’s this?” 

The man shoves Stiles to his knees with a hand bunched in the neck of his shirt. Deucalion's smile makes the hair on Derek’s neck stand.

“Ah, the thorn in my side. I’ve been wondering who would be stupid enough to pull what’s mine away from me.”

The more he talks the more Derek knows his time to act is slipping away. Ethan is still in the doorway, in line with where Derek stands. He’s looking down at his thigh, if Derek can just-

He waves. Like an idiot he’s waving his arm out hoping it’ll reach the bleeding mans peripheral. By some grace of god Ethan catches his eye. There’s a moment where they recognize the situation they’re in, and there’s no way to communicate a plan without drawing attention to it, Ethan is too far away to say anything without being overheard.

“Cops are on their way, and when they arrive you’ll be dead with this gun in your hand. I’ve acted on self defence after you shot my colleague, I’m devastated and shaken. No one will be looking for miss Lydia here, pity for her.”

Derek bites his tongue hard not to cry out when Ethan launches forward. He keeps himself hidden while the sounds of a struggle carry on. A shot goes off and hits the ceiling close to where he hides, dust floating down in front of him. There’s no way to tell who’s winning. He hears cursing from two men and things falling and breaking on the floor, the weight of their bodies hitting halls and furniture scraping and skin slapping against the hardwood. Derek chances a look.

Ethan’s tackling the henchman on the other side of the room, a clear path of destruction trailing behind them. Deucalion holds the gun pointed at Lydia, and Stiles remains on his knees with hands in his hair, but Deucalion has pivoted to watch the struggle with an amused smirk. Ethan is on the floor, the guy on top of him, but he manages to get the knee of his good leg up and the guy puts a hand to his crotch in pain. Ethan uses his elbows to crawl himself further along the floor and Derek starts to understand, because to keep his eyes on the action Deucalion has to pivot a bit more, putting his back to Derek.

Using the sound of the two men colliding once more for cover Derek sprints past Stiles and into Deucalion, putting an arm around the man’s neck and twist the hand with the gun upwards so the shot goes into the ceiling. Deucalion tries to flip him but Derek manages to keep his weight down and knock the man off balance, sending them both to the floor, Deucalion's head hitting the coffee table as they go. His effort is feeble when trying to keep Derek off of him and Derek manages to roll him into his back and straddle his chest, pinning his arms beneath him.

“Where’s Scott?” Derek yells. “Scott McCall, where is he?” 

Deucalion is still blinking blood out of his eyes from the cut on his forehead.

“Who?”

“My broth-“

Hot blood sprays his face. Lydia screams. Deucalion is limp beneath him. Derek lets go of the cashmere sweater stretched between his fists and stands with fire in his eyes.

Ethan’s stubborn jaw grinds. 

“He killed my brother.”

“My brother is still alive, he could have been the only person to tell me where he is.” Derek advances on him, Ethan struggles to meet his eyes where he’s hunched over still holding his thigh.

“He doesn’t know shit.” Stiles says from behind him, Lydia hovering close to his side. “He didn’t, Derek. He would have used it against you if he knew.”

Derek wants to argue, his fingernails are still biting into his palms with the need to tear flesh. Stiles doesn’t back down, he stares Derek in the eye and lifts his chin. Lydia takes Stiles’ hand, not quite meeting Derek’s eyes but not ducking down either. Derek hardly cares, his eyes don’t leave Stiles as he leads her towards the back door.

“Are you in the system?” Stiles says. He's in control, everyone in the room can feel it.

“No, but it’ll match Aiden.” Ethan’s voice is muffled because he’s looking down at where his hands are currently cinching a belt around his thigh.

“Cops will be here soon. Tell them they were fighting when you arrived with urgent work news and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were injured and acted on self defence.” 

Deucalion's words in Stiles’ mouth make Derek’s teeth itch.

Stiles leaves out the back door with Lydia, not a glance back at Derek who follows, careful not to step in any blood. They retrace their steps back to Derek’s car. The only words spoken are directions from the backseat where Stiles is holding Lydia’s hand. After what’s happened, the blood still crusting on his face and under his nails, the sight of their joint hands shouldn’t bother him as much as it does. 

He has to pace himself and count to three between every glance he takes at their hands on the leather. She’s too young. He’s too gay. Neither are true, but Derek is grasping.

He parks in an attached garage in the suburbs so far away they’re technically in a different municipality. It’s not uninhabited.

“What the fuck?” 

Derek is still in the garage, having let Lydia and Stiles enter the house first, and his gut clenches with a new rush of adrenaline when he hears a man yell from inside. He should have gone first, he’s got broader shoulders, he could have blocked them. Lydia dashes forward, then Stiles takes a few more steps in, and Derek sees him. The motherfucker. 

Jackson Whittemore is wearing sweatpants and a cotton shirt with no shoes, holding a red cheek in front of Lydia. Thank god she hit him first.

“You asshole. Not a single word since you left.”

“Lyds, c’mon. You know I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you could.” Lydia talks over him, leaving no room for denial. “Because the last time someone didn’t call me they were dead.” She’s got tears on her face but her voice is furious. 

Derek looks away, uncomfortably feeling like a voyeur. He sneaks behind her and follows a hallway, peering into every room he passes until he finds a closed door. The sound of water running blankets any other sound from the room. Derek steps in without knocking.

Steam from the shower wafts around him and half obscures Stiles, who has stripped down to his boxers. He’s scrubbing his hands in the sink.

“Why is Jackson here?”

“Lydia told me about his radical plan. I got him out of the motel in one piece and took him here.” Derek stairs at the hair dropping on Stiles’ forehead in the mirror. “I already had her tucked away, I didn’t want to move her for the reason you obviously discovered yourself.”

“What’s in it for you?” The shower running is the only response.“Why risk yourself for these people?”

Stiles drops the scrub brush with a clatter. His shoulder blades stand out in relief on his back when he leans against the counter and hangs his head.

“Same reason I run the shelter.” Derek’s shoulders slump in defeat at the small sound of Stiles’ voice. “I saw him last.”

“Stiles…” Derek steps behind him. 

Watches the tense line of Stiles’ neck, the tremors of his spine. He looks small, and delicate in a way Derek associates with frightened wildlife and children, but never Stiles. There are scars Derek has never seen, bruises painting the places hands have been on him. Derek remembers the blood painting the motel room and looks at Stiles’ face in the mirror, trying to reconcile what Stiles is saying. He made that mess. It’s impossible to picture the animated teenage Stiles in that room.

Derek has never seen a man die before, he can still feel tremors of adrenaline and terror that he'll have to sit down and deal with once he's alone, but in the mirror Stiles looks calm. Derek is suddenly certain that this is not the first time Stiles has been so close to violence and death. That kid Derek used to know is gone, and in his place is a man with cold eyes and hard edges and he wants to know, needs to know, if this Stiles will feel the same against him.

Stiles’ skin is warm in the steam heated room, yet Derek feels goosebumps roll under his palms as he slides them down Stiles’ sides. When Stiles doesn’t pull away Derek steps closer, his chest pressed against Stiles' back as he lets his hands move without hesitation when they meet his boxers and take them down.

“You need to clean up,” he murmurs into Stiles' hairline and gently pulls on his hips until he's turned around. 

Stiles’ eyes flick across him. Derek’s avoided his own image in the mirror, he can still feel the itch of the blood on his skin, and Stiles’ eyes catch on his face but they don't meet his eyes.

Stiles’ hands pull at his shirt, “You too.”

Its slow and firm, everything they never were when they were young and over eager, panting against each other in fits of fumbling hands. Derek takes his time letting his hands follow the path of the water down Stiles’ skin. He tilts his face into the spray as Stiles does the same. 

They finish against each other, their foreheads pressed into eachothers shoulders so Derek can hear the small desperate sounds before the water drowns them out. Stiles says his name like he’s begging and it sounds like the Stiles he used to know. Derek is helpless to do anything but follow with a groan into shoulders broader than they used to be.

Eyes closed, his nose trails the side of Stiles' jaw and catches on the light stubble there before he's close enough to kiss, a simple press of lips and no more. When Stiles pulls back his hair is slicked back and his eyelashes are spiked with water, his wide eyes more dangerous than the guns he’s recently faced. Stiles steps out of the shower without a word.

Derek is towelling off his hair when Stiles slips a folded pile of sweats onto the counter and disappears. Dressing is an awkward affair, he feels off-kilter in his own body. Derek finds the rest of the house inhabitants gathered in the living room, wet hair and pink skin on all of them. They’re wearing fresh grey toned cotton. Stiles stands with arms crossed in a business fashion, nothing left of the moment they just shared.

“Lydia is older than you think. I got her a place in the high school because she wanted the experience she didn’t get growing up. She’s an escort, and she became acquainted with Aiden when they discovered their shared clientele before he got his job with Alpha Tech. When Aiden fell into trouble with them he approached Lydia for help. They killed him, but not before he managed to pass the Nematon on to Lydia for safekeeping. When Jackson pulled his brilliant plan,” Jackson makes a derisive noise in the back of his throat, “I got him here, and then you showed up with Lydia. Why, might I add, did you have an escort in your car?”

Derek rolls his eyes.

“I was trying to track him down for a mutual friend. All I found was Lydia.” He looks at Jackson, “You owe Danny a call.”

“How the fuck do you know Danny?” Jackson says.

“University.” 

He shrugs and tries not to feel guilty under Stiles’ stare. His phone vibrates where he’s thrown it on the coffee table and he grabs it like the lifeline it is. It’s his mother. The words on the screen make him want to cry with relief, she’s making tacos. He doesn't want to know what the Nematon is or why it's important, he doesn't want to trade snide remarks with Jackson Whittemore, and he doesn't want to think about the enigma that is Stiles Stilinski. 

He wants Casa del Delgado tacos and a good night's rest.

x

Noah Stilisnki takes great pleasure in few things, food, whisky, and time with his kid. One of those things periodically forgets how to use a cell phone, and another is too expensive to indulge in everyday. So when Parrish tries to take away what little he has left, damn right he’s defensive.

“I’ve gained fifteen pounds since I was partnered with you.” Parrish says, like it has anything to do with Noah. That’s on the kid, he should be working out more, really. He’s about to say so when his phone rings. His personal.

“Melissa,” he greats and questions simultaneously around a mouthful.

“Noah, there’s been an incident.” No good news ever came after those words. Noah frowns into his noodle box. “Derek and I heard someone else in the house. Derek’s chased after them, who knows what’s going to happen if he manages to catch them.”

Noah takes his feet off of the desk and straightens, he puts the noodle box down and waves Parrish closer. 

“Alright, I’m going to hand you off to Jordan so I can get a hold of Derek and see where he is. Stay on the line for him.”

He hands over the cellphone and quickly digs up Derek Hale’s number while Parrish reassures Melissa, already gathering his jacket. Noah nods as Parrish places his own cell on the desk and walks out. Noah uses Parrish’s phone to call Derek.

“Hale speaking,” he sounds out of breath.

“Derek, this is Noah Stilinski. Your mother called about the home invasion. Have you made contact with the perpetrator?”

“No. I made it halfway through town before he disappeared into a park. Not visibly armed, height suggested male, slim build, black hoodie and jeans. Nothing useful but the backpack.”

“How so?” Noah pauses writing.

“Black too, but it had a smiley face patch on it.”

“Copy. You want a ride, kid?”

There’s a telling silence before Derek agrees, still catching his breath, and rattles off the closest street name. Noah drives him back to the McCall house, he doesn’t need an address for that.

Parrish and Melissa welcome them in, the latter looking shaken with her hair seeming bigger than usual.

“Did they hurt you?” Noah asks.

“No,” she tries to smile but it’s a grimace torn between grief and anger. He looks at Parrish for clues but his tight face reveals nothing.

“What did they take?”

“Scott,” Melissa manages to grind out, but the word deflates her and Derek steps in to hold her. “They took my Scotty.” Noah hears before she and Derek have a muffled conversation against his damp shirt.

“The photo albums.” Derek translates.

They take statements and do a walk through to make sure it’s all clear. A second floor window has been pried open, but Derek insists Melissa will stay with him until they can repair it to lock properly again. Melissa doesn’t look too happy about it, but that’s a conversation Noah feels they’ll be having once the door is shut behind him. Noah and Parrish leave the house late with little to go on and more questions than answers, which is starting to feel like all they do these days.

Noah finds himself back in his least favourite place in the world. The fluorescents make him squint in annoyance. It works to his advantage. She’s not smiling anymore.

“Where’s the body, Katherine.” 

He’s not here for games. Parrish isn’t here to play good cop. She remains silent. 

The chair beneath him grinds against the floor. His steps are deliberate and steady until he’s rounded the table. Kate’s chair squeals when he grabs the back of it and whips her around to face him.

“This feels personal, Stilisnki,” she tries to grin but there’s a caution to it, finally she’s listening to the edge in his voice.

He braces himself on her chair and the table, has her cornered and chained, and when he leans into her face she has nowhere to go.

“Scott’s McCall. You chopped him up.” He slams his hand on the table next to her just to watch her jump. “Where did you put the pieces?”

As soon as an address comes from her lips he’s gone.

Parrish keeps looking at him. Noah knows he’s pacing, and he knows he’ll have to talk to the kid so he can stop looking at him out of the corner of his eye like a wild animal, but right now all he can focus on is the torn earth before him.

“When this case is closed I’m going on vacation. Paid to sit on a beach, doesn’t get better. How about you, Liam?”

Noah listens in to distract himself. Idle chit chat is something he’s rather good at, but he doesn’t feel like participating today.

“Gotta introduce my girlfriend to my dad. He keeps asking about her but I know if she meets mine I gotta formally meet hers, and that man’s terrifying.”

His talking is periodically interrupted by grunting or sighing as he moves around the bottom of the hole with a brush and a camera. Noah and Parrish share a surprised look. Girlfriend. This little bugger that’s been pulling on Parrish’s chain has a girl. Noah feels a few chuckles burst past his lips at the sight of Parrish’s face. He wonders if the tech even realizes what he’s done to his poor partner. He can see Parrish rearranging every moment he’s spent talking with him in the vacant look of horror he has. Noah continues pacing slowly, more of a wander than his previous prowl.

The kid pops his head out of the hole and says something unintelligible behind his mask to Parrish. Noah can’t decipher it but Parrish’s face is not looking good.

“What the hell is he saying?” He stops pacing. Both eyes turn to him with a look he doesn’t like.

“It’s a girl.”

Noah chokes on his heart in his throat. A little girl. There’s a moment he’s repulsed by his relief, it’s wiped away by the anger that follows. Parrish ducks the other way for a phone call so Noah approaches the kid directly.

“How can you know?” he demands.

“It’s not exact, but the hips, the clothes. Hair doesn’t break down as fast and it looks pretty long.”

Noah shakes his head. He rubs his face with his hands.

“Noah,” The sound of his name from Parrish is surreal, and it warns him that this nightmare is not over. He drops his hands to his hips to prepare for whatever’s next. Parrish hesitates and Noah winces at the uncharacteristic caution. “They made an arrest for the Argent murder.”

Noah’s brow furrows. “That’s our case, who made the-“

Parrish says it all in one go like tearing off a bandage. “Someone saw a distinct blue jeep near the house at the time of death. It’s no longer our case, Stiles Stilisnki was arrested for suspected murder.”

His lungs collapse, nothing could have prepared him for it. He recalls the tired look on Stiles’ face in the moonlight, how distant he’d seemed at that moment. Bile swells in the back of his throat, ringing starts up in his ears, he crouches down and puts a hand in the dirt to steady himself.

x

The phone picks up on the third ring.

“Hale speaking.”

“Derek.” 

He can’t get past that. He doesn’t know how to say the rest.

“Stiles,” of course he sounds surprised. 

He’s not using his cellphone, he’s lucky the man even answered.

“I need a defence attorney.” 

It’s the closest he can come to asking. Because he knows this case might drag him down, and he can’t ask Derek to be dragged with him. Maybe he should have taken the overworked and under-qualified city DA. The silence is long.

“What do they have?”

“Someone claims they saw my Jeep. they’re pressing charges for the murder of Gerard Argent.”

“Impossible.”

Stiles stares at the phone, wondering if maybe Derek is talking to someone else at the same time.

“Derek?”

“I’m not your lawyer, Stiles. You were with me all day.”

It takes a moment to click. Derek is offering to be his alibi. If it isn’t iron strong, if he forgot to cover anything, it’s not just Derek’s reputation he ruins. It’s Derek’s life.

“All day?” He asks, because he can’t ask what he really wants to. Are you sure?

“Yes. I had you here, all day.”

Stiles presses his forehead against the wall and breathes for the first time since the cruiser took him away from the Centre.

He says “Okay,” but what he really means is thank you.

When he hangs up he lets himself remember the rush, the rev of the vehicle as he ran the body over, his hands bloody on the steering wheel before he wiped away the prints. He doesn’t regret it.

Boyd visited Erica in the hospital before she died. She was unconscious the entire time, but Stiles wasn’t. Boyd told him the whole story, about Erica being a captive all those years and blackmailed into assisting the kidnapping. It may have been true, but he also knew she was the only person Isaac would talk to for the first year he started visiting the Centre. Stiles knew her, and he knew the true monster was the one holding the leash.

He’d only meant to look. To stare the man in the eye and see if anything stared back. He hadn’t accounted for the haze of anger that took over him the moment the front door of the hideous mansion opened.

Even if he has to spend the rest of his life surrounded by cement he wouldn’t regret it.

x

Allison doesn’t know what day it is and she loves it. If she doesn’t know the date, she can’t remember that today was the day she crashed the car, she burned the house down, she left her husband. It wasn’t her that did those things. Matt took her off the insurance, he changed the locks on the door, he called her a whore and demanded his ring back. But if she can’t remember the date, she definitely can’t feel how naked the second finger on her left hand feels.

The space is dark and bright and black and colourful all in one, especially when she shakes her head to the music and her hair falls into her eyes. This band is fucking amazing. Or maybe they’re shit. But the bass is heavy and her heart is vibrating with it.

She throws herself at the bar between a crush of people and giggles at the bartender when he takes her order. He’s cute. Or maybe he’s not. But her cheeks are warm and she feels desire for something, why not him?

There’s no line for the washrooms, miraculously. She pisses a waterfall and reapplies lip gloss, admiring herself in the mirror. The lighting is perfect for a selfie. Or maybe it’s dim and shadowy. The photo is blurry but she posts it anyway because fuck it, she’s allowed to be cute.

She’s stepping back when a girl grabs her arm.

“Honey, you’ve gotta watch your drink.” 

Allison’s scowls. Who is she, her mother? Her mother’s dead, she doesn’t need another one. She tries to shrug off but the woman pulls her closer and Allison stumbles off balance before her hip slams into the counter to steady her. 

“Your long island at the bar, I saw a guy put something in it. You’re drugged, hun. Do you have someone you can call?”

The girl has to repeat it before it sets in. Drugged. Allison splashed cold water on her face. The drink was still over half full when she left for the washroom, or maybe it wasn’t, but she’s had so many it’s hard to keep track. The girl helps her use her phone because she didn’t dry her hands and it’s hard to read the screen through the drops of water and the alcohol in her head and- god, the drugs in her system. 

She offers Allison a cigarette while they sit on the dirty street curb, but her head is spinning so harshly she can’t reach for it. Twenty eight years old, a full adult, and she has no house, no husband, nothing but the empty bottles in her purse. Several hands, too many hands, help her into a car.

She wakes on a patchwork couch she doesn’t recognize in a rundown living room even more alien. Someone had the forethought to put a bucket next to the coffee table.

Stiles is standing in the doorway when she manages to lift her head. He’s holding a cup of coffee and a sympathetic smile. It makes her deflate back into the lumpy cushions.

“Matt left me,” She croaks on a dry throat.

She feels the weight of Stiles sitting next to her.

“Oh Alley Cat.” The childhood nickname from the grandmother who raised her makes her feel overwhelmingly like silly little girl who’s made a mess. Stiles tucks her under his shoulder where she curls up and pretends the world doesn’t hurt the way it does.

She cries because it’s not the first time something like this has happened. Matt had the right to be suspicious after the number of times he’s had to pull her out of a bar, barely able to walk and pressed against a warm body. She’s been getting better. Or maybe… maybe she’s told herself she was, but she still ended up puking into a toilet at least once a month. Matt may have been an asshole, but he wasn’t the only one.

x

“You dug up a body.” Derek states at the edge of the desk.

“Derek.” Mr. Stilisnki doesn’t look pleased to see him. Derek frowns when the man takes off glasses, so slim Derek didn’t even realise he was wearing them.

“Was it his?”

Mr. Stilisnki sighs, “No. We followed insight from Kate Argent. It lead to the discovery of a prepubescent female.” The conversation falters. Derek fantasizes about strangling Kate Argent for the thousandth time. “Do you remember anything more about the break-in?”

“We were downstairs, in the kitchen. Heard something drop off of the bookshelf, caught them upstairs, followed them out of the window.” 

Derek knows his tone is short, but they went over this when they recorded a statement. There was nothing left to add. Mr. Stilinski fiddles with a pencil in a habitual way Derek recognizes from Stiles. 

“What fell?”

“A box of letters from Kate Argent. She used to send them to Mel. I don’t know why she keeps them, they’re horrid.”

Mr. Stilinski’s brows raise and Derek guesses his mother never told anyone about them. Derek’s only read half of one before he tore it in half and mom didn’t let him see the others. They were filled with the same sort of dribble that came from Kate’s mouth.

The pencil in Mr. Stilinski’s hand freezes, “How did she post them?”

Derek shrugs. Who the fuck cares about old letters. 

“Never thought of it.”

Mr. Stilinski tilts back in his chair with a loud creak. 

“Why don’t you bring them in.”

It doesn’t take long for some guys on a computer to figure out where they came from. Something about the numbers stamped on the envelope. Mr. Stilinski sighs long, and his partner shakes his head like someone just ran over his dog when they’re able to pinpoint an address.

“What?” Derek demands, he doesn’t like being on the outside.

“It’s out of our jurisdiction. Getting approval from the other county could take weeks, maybe a month or two if they want to push us around a bit.” Mr. Stilinski rubs his forehead like just the thought of it is exhausting. “I’ll go make the request.”

Derek watches the other detective. He’s looking sideways at the wall, like he’s uncomfortable, and Derek knows he’s holding back.

“Spit it out.”

The guy's hands rest habitually on his hips like he’s more used to wearing a belt than the suit he shrugs in. 

“There is another way.”

Derek is confused, until he remembers the illegal photographs of a dead man probably still on Stiles’ phone. It sounds like a perfect loophole. Then Derek remembers the tiny sound of Stile’s voice when he used his one call on Derek. They managed to slip him out of those cuffs with a hair's breadth of luck and a shit ton of quick thinking. 

The mess with Deucalion hasn’t come back to them yet and hopefully never will. The mere thought of Stiles being pulled in for something as stupid as interferance after all of that heats the stone is his gut.

“I won't let him anywhere near this.”

The detective arches a brow, “You really think you can tell Stiles Stilinski what to do?”

Derek grinds his teeth.

x

He watches the house for two hours before the woman leaves. She’s dark haired and menacing as she mounts the shining motorcycle and rips away. There are no neighbours but the wild animals she resembles. The window is easy enough to jam open with damage she won’t see from the inside. His phone buzzes. Derek.

They haven’t talked since the safehouse. Stiles presses ‘Ignore’. One crisis at a time.

The interior is barren, a minimalist look that leaves him cold at the thought of living here. It reminds him of the jail cell he spent a mere few hours in and he shivers. There’s nothing. No mail on the counter or laptop left out, nothing on top of the fridge or tucked in a closet or even under the bed. Not even dust. He’ll have to come back and follow her tomorrow. 

He walks by the front door when it catches his eye, a small box on the entrance way shelf. It’s polished stone, no bigger than a jewellery box. In a house barren of kickbacks or personality it’s practically glowing with significance. A silver key smaller than a household deadbolt with a little four digit number on it. His heart skips a beat. It could be nothing.

The nearest storage facility is not near. He arrives midday. The drive made him double back towards home to the warehouse district on the edge of town. One by one he passes rows of identical orange garage doors until he finds the matching number to the key. Opening the door is anti climatic.

It’s boxes. Stacks of them to the ceiling. He reaches for the closest one, brushes off the dust, and peels back the flaps.,VHS tapes bundled in three. He catches the labels and wonders why they seem so familiar. Actors of the past? He picks up another bundle and the name is too familiar.

He steps back, heart racing In realisation. The name meticulously blocked out in black sharpie is Scott McCall. The rest belong to case files he’s seen on his father’s desk and missing children signs he grew up seeing on telephone posts. His hands are sweating and shaking when he dials the phone, his eyes trying to take in the sheer number of boxes surrounding him.

“Jordan,” he says when the phone picks up, and then he stops, for the first time in his life completely at a loss for words.


	2. Chapter 2

Noah is suffocating in a dark room filled to the brim with stacks of tapes. There are three for each name, labeled neat; Hunt, Pain, Kill. He stares at the black screen for a long time before he manages to slide the heavy tape into the slot of an ancient VHS player.

He’s tumbling, blurry trees, the ground moving below, a quick glimpse of the sky as the camera is turned around. A figure, three and a half feet tall in a red hoodie walking through the trees. The camera follows, stalking it’s way from behind trees and bushes until the figure grows on screen, the camera moving closer as it comes around. 

He catches glimpses of Scott’s round cheeks, a peek of his dark eyes flashing here and there as he wanders, obviously lost the further he goes. The video cuts abruptly with the camera so close it captures only Scott’s torso.

The tape ejects itself. Noah’s every limb is encased in concrete, he has to crack and snap through it as he moves to exchange the tape, his brow sweating with effort. 

The next tape slides in. All air freezes in his lungs. A snowstorm on screen. He waits, unblinking, sweat rolling down his skin and glistening in the pale light. Nothing. A pain swells and grows inside his chest until it bursts in an almighty sob, oxygen tearing through his lungs. Tears seep into the wrinkled creases of his worn face squeezing around his hands as they hold his eyes. He falls apart to the sound of static on an unrecorded tape. 

The door opens long after his episode has passed, he’s sitting in the dark in front of a blank screen. He’s dimly aware it’s not a good look for his psych eval.

“She admitted to not killing him.” 

“How did you know?” Parrish asks from the doorway, Noah can see his reflection on the black screen.

“There’s only one tape recorded for Scott.”

“She said something else,” Noah straightens from the thousand pound slump keeping him in the chair and turns to face the man properly. “She said she was interrupted because his father arrived.”

Noah’s eyelid twitches.

“Kyle McCall appeared before her while also being on a plane headed for Amsterdam?” He asks skeptically.

Parrish shrugs, “It’s what she said.”

She’s been lying to them this whole time, pulling on their chains to amuse herself. This lie doesn’t make sense, doesn’t give her anything to hold over their heads. It doesn’t feel like a lie, but it’s not the truth. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Calling Melissa,” Noah says with the phone already pressed to his ear. It rings once.

Parrish takes over tape duty so when Melissa arrives within the hour with Derek in tow Noah has had time to rinse his face in cold water and eat one of the healthy nut bars Stiles keeps stuffing into his desk every time he visits. Noah motions for Melissa to come with him and shakes his head at Derek when he tries to follow. 

Derek looks like he might fight it, but he reigns it in when he catches sight of Noah’s stern face and stays by the desk. Noah takes Melissa into the hall near the washrooms. He’s sick of interrogation rooms. 

“Kyle McCall was several thousand miles away and a few in the air when Scott disappeared, so I need to know if someone else is Scott’s father.” 

Melissa looks stricken by the accusation, but her hesitation tells him all he needs to know. 

“Mel,” he sighs, the tension in his shoulders keeping his voice tight.

She’s reluctant to admit it, her mouth twisting and her eyes not meeting his. 

“I never told either of them. I thought Kyle and I were going to divorce soon, what did a little affair matter?” She squeezes her eyes tight and pinches her face together. She continues in quick words, “Then I was pregnant and suddenly he loved me again, thought the world was growing in my stomach. It didn’t last long, obviously. But it doesn’t make sense, he’s-”

“Who was it Mel?” 

She hesitates, leans in close and lowers her voice so he barely catches the name, “Peter Hale.” 

Noah’s eyes instantly look over her shoulder to Derek standing impatiently with his arms crossed impatiently at the desk. 

“Jesus Christ.” 

Melissa purses her lips and shakes her head, probably knowing exactly what he’s doing. 

“He doesn’t know and you’re not going to tell him. Any ways, it couldn’t have been Peter. He died in the fire.” 

“Okay,” Noah grimaces at the loss of another lead. He knows he’s going to have to dig up the file regardless. Hopefully this one is where it’s supposed to be. “C’mon, I gotta keep working and you’ve spent enough time in this building.” 

They start towards his desk only to see it’s empty. Derek’s standing over one of the techs across the isle and staring at the screen with grim determination.

“What is it?” Noah calls as he corrects his path. No one answers as he walks up and finds the screen split into four with security videos playing in each square. “Donor footage?”

Derek points to the square showing a lineup, a bright smiley face patch easily standing out on a black bag. 

“This is the backpack I followed out of mom’s window.” 

Noah squints at the grainy square, the person wearing the backpack is faced the other way, but there’s something familiar about the back of his head. Before he can recall it the person turns to look behind them, their pixelated face still recognizable through the grain.

“The kid?” He all but yells, a tidal wave set off in his mind. 

“Who is he?” Derek demands and everyone is looking from the screen to Noah, but he’s miles away weaving red string through the years and cases. 

Distantly he’s aware of his body stumbling backwards, “Luke, Liam, Leo. Parrish knows, I gotta…” his feet start walking, then jogging. 

x 

Liam Dunbar never arrived for work. No one can pinpoint the last time they saw him. It should be ironic, but it’s not. Stiles’ dad is pulling his hair out and Jordan is trying to keep order so they don’t get fired for harassment or aggravated assault. Stiles spends half an hour sitting in the Jeep parked outside of the precinct working it all out using his cell phone, the back of a crumpled receipt and a pen he jacked from the front desk. 

By some coincidence, Lydia is the link in. She knows a girl with an older brother, and he’s friends with the girl dating Liam. And of course, said girlfriend was recently introduced to the family and knows where Liam’s father lives.

Patrick Dunbar, formerly Peter Hale, resides two towns over in a mid sized home in the suburbs. He answers the door in a lavender button down and an amused smile. 

“Another of Liam’s scorned lovers realize he has a girlfriend?” 

Stiles punches him so hard they’re both left crouching in pain, Peter his face and Stiles his hand. Stiles is lucky his anger is stronger than the pain. 

“You are the most worthless piece of crap I’ve ever witnessed in human form.” He grits out. 

Peter still manages to sound smug through the bleeding nose he’s holding, “Why so?” 

“You abandoned your nephew and you kidnapped his brother, for starters.” 

Peter holds up a finger, “Technically, he’s his cousin.” 

Stiles tries to punch him again, but Peter sees it coming and takes ahold of his forearm, pressing it against his chest and using it to shove Stiles into the wall. Stiles instinctively struggles out of the hold, but lets himself be pushed back face first into the wall. 

He’s worked hard to earn the strength to fight back against men like this, he knows he can do it, but he makes the decision to let himself be subdued by the hand on the back of his head and the weight crushing down on him. He wants to know what Peter will say.

“You have no idea what it was like. You think I abandoned him? Everyone left me to die.” Peter’s spitting blood as he yells, his voice so loud and so close that Stiles’ ears ring. “I crawled out of the fire on my own four limbs. When I recovered I was certified deceased and she had them both.” Peter’s snarls. 

Slowly he leans back far enough so Stiles can see his face out of the corner of his eye, but the grip remains solidly holding him in place. 

“I found him in Kate’s hands. If I didn’t step in he would be dead, I promise you that. I saved him.”

Stiles doesn’t have a response. A part of him, dark and buried deep, can sympathize. Stiles would never admit it, so he stays quiet while he works on a rebuttal.

“Melissa had her chance. Scott was mine, he belonged with me, they both did! But I left Derek for her, didn’t I? I’m not a monster.” Peter pushes until he’s right against Stiles, his whole body bracketing his own while he says the last word with a sneer.

Stiles wants to tell him about the pain he’s caused, about the lives he’s ruined, but he has a feeling it wouldn’t phase the man, so he asks the most important thing. 

“Where is he?” 

“I built a good life for us here. He likes his new name, he likes his new friends. He’s happy.” Stiles grunts when the man shoves him harder against the wall, “I made him happy.”

“Where is Scott?” Stiles demands, done with this monologuing bullshit and shoves off of the wall so he can face Peter. 

Peter chuckles, his hands releasing their hold easily. 

“Damned if I know. Liam though, he moved back into town, closer to work. Ain’t that the thing? You spend all of those years nurturing and loving, and just like everyone else, they leave you.” 

Stiles shoves past the man. He remembers the years Melissa spent looking wildly around every time some kid called for their mother. He remembers the way Derek used to cry every night through high school. He storms out of the door and yells over his shoulder.

“You deserve to be left.” 

He doesn’t waste anymore time looking at the man when he climbs into the Jeep and for the first time wishes he owned a car more like Derek’s. His foot touches the floor the whole drive back to town. His fingers tap on the steering wheel. 

Where would Scott McCall go?

X

They can’t locate him. Derek feels like every second ticking by is an inch of skin peeling from his bones. Detective Parrish is talking to one of the girls the kid, Liam, Scott, works with. She looks subdued in her office chair as she babbles on about Liam knowing, he found out as soon as he realized the bandage at the scene was his. Derek grinds his teeth so hard his jaw aches. 

Detective Parrish kneels in front of her, frowning, “Where would Liam go, Kira?” 

The girl shakes her head and Derek’s fingernails pierce his palms with the strength it takes not to grab her by the shoulders and shake, demanding and threatening. He turns back to the back corner desk he stands over, a small plaque reading ‘Dunbar, Liam’ on the side and there’s nothing to show personality other than a general untidiness. Derek looks out at the bullpen before him, Mr. Stilinski and his partners desks in clear view at the centre, the entrance not too far away. How many times did Derek walk by? 

He has to go. Being this close and sitting still is impossible. He wipes the pinpricks of blood on his jeans and turns to leave when something catches his eye. Tucked into the corner of the cork board by Liam’s desk is a barcode tag. Derek peers at the fine print along the bottom. 

‘RED/ SZ L/CLSC ZIP’

Someone calls his name as he shoves through the door, but he’s in his car and peeling out before anyone catches up to him. 

x

It starts with Detective Stilinski leaning against the window. The man is usually in good spirits, a generally well respected figurehead for the department, but with his sallow face pressed on the glass he looks like he has the flu. Liam kicks his bag under the desk and rolls his chair over to his desk neighbour, Kira.

“What’s up with him?” He jerks his head at the detective.

Kira peers around before she whispers, “They reopened the McCall case.”

“What case?” 

Kira’s eyes widen like he’s asked something unfathomable. This happens a lot. Liam has lived in town for barely a couple of years and it seems everyone who grew up here has their own secret language he only sometimes pretends to understand. 

“A little boy went missing while the detective was watching him, like, an eon ago. They ruled it as an Argent case,” this name Liam does know, “but they just found his blood in a hotel room.” 

“Andrew Green’s hotel room?” His brows creased. He remembers photographing that room. There wasn’t much blood, or rather, questionable blood. The splatter from the guy's fatal bullet wound was to be expected. 

“Yeah, on a band-aid.” 

And this. This is the moment Liam’s hair starts to rise without him knowing why. He watches silently as Kira clicks through her tabs and opens a closeup of a circular band-aid. 

“This band-aid?” He asks. He has to ask.

“That’s the one. Guy’s been missing twenty years, I wonder what happened to him.” She hums, “How did he end up there?”

Liam feels sweaty, and cold, and he’s shaking a bit like he’s going to-

“Bad lunch,” he mumbles and dashes to the washroom just in time to heave up the perfectly good sushi roll from the place two doors down. 

He shoves a trembling hand through his damp hair to push it out of his face and leans against the wall, the floor cold and solid beneath him. Feebly he lets gravity do the work of pulling his hand down against the lever to flush the mess down. He works on steadying his breath, his pulse slowly coming back to normal. Twenty years. 

“Scott,” he tests the name on his gritty tongue and it echoes around the empty stall. 

He heaves again. 

How do you go about asking the only father you remember having if he kidnapped you? You don’t. 

He stays well away from Patrick, feigning being too busy with work, which is half true. Every second he waits for someone to grab him from behind and expose him, the small needle mark on his arm feeling like a brand under his clothing. Hayden tells him the detectives stopped by her house, and when he pushes she says they questioned her father, not her. She doesn’t understand why he’s so strung out about it. He doesn’t know what to tell her, so he stops answering her calls. 

Kira notices. 

“Are you sure you’re well enough? We can send someone else with them.” 

“I volunteered, I’m going.” 

He throws the camera bag strap over his head and meets the two detectives at the dig sight for what could be his own body, and a desperate part of him ignores reason and in a twisted way hopes to find Scott McCall in that hole. As soon as his eyes land on the bones he knows it’s a little girl, but he has both detectives here desperate to find something. He jokes with Parrish as normally as he can through his paper mask and the steady rush of anxiety streaming through his veins. 

He keeps Detective Stilinski in his peripheral. The man is stalking like a caged animal. He remembers Kira’s words and wonders what he was doing with the Detective when he disappeared. Through stolen glances Liam tries to see the man as anything other than Detective Stilinski. He’s crouched over the bones, brush in hand and camera around his neck when he remembers. Not something from his childhood, but last week. Detective Stilinski’s son came by. 

Stiles. The name feels familiar, but he’s never actually met the Detective’s son. Liam peeks at the stressed man wearing a dirt path into the dead grass. 

“I’m right here! I’m fine! Nothing happened!” Liam wants to tell him so badly. He swallows it down and keeps talking with Parrish until he can’t take being in his own grave any longer and hands it back to the little girl beneath him. 

He sees him. Derek Hale. The brother he doesn’t remember having. He’s in the bullpen sometimes, glaring like he’s being paid to do so. Sometimes he’s with the woman, Melissa. His mother. Liam almost breaks the first time he sees her. Patrick told him his mother died in a car crash. Seeing her is like looking in a mirror, they have the same eyes, the same wavy hair he’s kept mostly short, he bets he gets his dimples from her too, but he doesn’t get the chance to see them. 

How do you tell a stranger she’s the mother you remember nothing about? You don’t. 

After she leaves he hides in the old filing room in the basement until the damp air has turned his fingers numb and he can see his breath. Kira accosts him when he returns to his desk shivering. 

“Did you break up with Hayden?”

“Nnn...“ he winces as her eyebrows go up. “We’re taking a break?”

He and Hayden have been on edge for awhile, something they thought meeting the parents might help, like if they took big steps then it meant they must be serious, right? But it turns out faking it until you make it doesn’t work so well with relationships. 

“Is that why you’ve been hiding in storage?” 

“I have not… “ 

She stares at him blankly. How is she so good at that? He deflates in his chair and rubs his nose in thought. The truth itches on his tongue, constricting his throat until he can’t take it. He looks at Kira, they’ve been friends since they met in training years ago, her laughter is bubbly and eyes kind and even now, as she calls him out for lying, her aura is gentle. He can’t keep lying. He swallows the nerves fluttering in his stomach, a deep contrast to the dread weighing the rest of him down. 

“Not here.” He says, the words making him realize he’s actually going to do it, he’s going to tell her. 

And he does. He tells her all of it. She’s comforting and kind and it’s great, but he knows no matter the empathy she holds she’ll never really get it, and she may not say it, but he knows she’s not sure about keeping the secret.

He calls in sick the next day. How can he go to work when he doesn’t even know who he is? He doesn’t. 

One of his earliest memories is having a red hoodie his dad tried to take away, so Liam decided the best course of action was to never take it off in retaliation. At some point he spilled something on it and it forcefully went into the wash. Liam never saw it again. He buys one exactly like it. The new fleece is soft against his skin, the sleeves a little too long on purpose so he can curl his hands in the extra length, something he thinks he did as a kid. He goes for a walk.

Every step takes him closer to the place he was last seen as Scott McCall. It’s okay, he tells the nerves in his stomach.

He wants to be found. 

x

The comaro pulls into the parking lot as Stiles slams the Jeep door. 

“What happened to your face?” 

Stiles shrugs without looking at him, “it met a wall.” 

He didn’t look at it, but he can still feel the puffiness of a blooming bruise on his cheek and Peter’s nose did bleed a lot, it’s possible that’s in his hair. He tries to walk by, but Derek’s hand grabs him right where an old cut is healing from the unfortunate motel knife fight he never wants to think about for the rest of his life and he flinches away, out of reach. 

“What the hell is up with you, Stiles?” 

Black laughter escapes his lips when he twirls around, “you used to have a brother, remember him?” 

It’s perhaps a bit cruel, and he regrets it when he sees the flash of pain Derek’s face. Then comes anger.

“No. You’re different, and I think you’ve been different for awhile. What happened? Why are you so…” he doesn’t finish, doesn’t have to. 

Stiles knows, he has a mirror too, thank you very much. And here’s Derek looking at him like the asshole isn’t the exact reason Stiles isn’t the naive little kid he was when Derek left. Derek’s spark of anger ignites his own. 

“I had to stay!” He yells. “I had to live in the same fucking town and remember all of it. The playground where Scott and I met, the bench my mother sat on, the bed you used to sleep in.” 

He uses his hands to point out the exact direction of all the places he can navigate to with his eyes closed, because this town is written in his skin. His chest is heaving with the pressure he’d felt. 

“I was drowning in the past, and I couldn’t run away like you and Allison.” He accuses, and holy crap he’s shaking with it, the old feelings of betrayal and hurt reappearing like he didn’t spend every waking moment forgetting Derek’s name. 

A piece of him, the same something dark and bitter he felt less than an hour ago, taunts him with how similar his words sound to Peter’s. 

Derek looks rightly subdued, his weight shifted backwards on retreat and his hands in his pockets. 

“I shouldn’t have left like that.” 

“You fucking got that right.” Stiles says, seven years of anger heating his voice, “You have no idea what you meant to me.”

“I didn’t know how to be around you!” 

Stiles will give it to him, Derek looks like being honest for the first time is painful for him, but it’s too late for Stiles to feel any remorse for the bastard. If Derek’s upset, he fucking earned it.

The park is silent around them, their only spectators are the birds flying overhead and the silent giant evergreens. The place suddenly feels too big and not big enough for the both of them. It’s overcast, the sky a blank page above them. There’s too many things to say, and he doesn’t want to say any of them because nothing’s going to change and right now is really not the fucking time. 

“Why bring this up now? Shit, Derek.” 

Stiles shakes his head and swallows down the bitterness as he storms towards the tree line.

“Stiles,” Derek says.

“Stiles?” Someone else calls. 

Stiles’ head whips around and there’s Allison, squinting at him from the looping path that circles the park.

“Allison, what are you doing here?” He hasn’t seen her since they’re shared breakfast on the couch. 

“I’m on a walk?” 

He’d told her she was welcome to stay as long as she needed, but he hadn’t really thought about what she would do to fill her time. The way the days going, he guesses it’s only par for the course things keep popping up in unexpected places. He can still feel Derek behind him and somewhere, somewhere in this god forbidden forest is Scott McCall. He does not have fucking time for this. 

“Whatever,” he rolls his shoulders out and keeps his head down, continuing to the place he can’t remember being in, but knows from the years he spent staring at photos and thin red lines drawn on a map in a case file. 

Time stretches until every step he takes feels too slow, his limbs moving through molasses no matter how much he urges them to keep going. A pain in his chest, his lungs swelling with oxygen it releases too quickly to enjoy. The uneven ground beneath his feet catches the tips of his toes on rampant roots and threatens his ankles with painful angles and still, he can't find it in himself to focus on the ground in front of him long enough to be useful. 

Above are stark branches contorting themselves against an overcast sky so bright he's squinting. Autopilot takes him left, then right, around the bend near the bench his father used to sit on, almost… 

The world disappears and leaves only the large oak, the one Derek tried to climb as a stupid kid. It stops Stiles in his tracks. He squints harder to see it, but it's looming shadow is too far away at the end of the trail. 

His hands are trembling at his sides like he's doing something frightening, but he's not. He wipes the sweaty palms on his jeans and swallows thickly . He's not. Step by step, breath by wheezing breath, the tree comes into focus until he's rounding it's trunk. A flash of red on a low branch and Stiles' feet fumble over themselves. 

A hooded figure sits on the lowest branch, their back turned and slouched in a juvenile bend. Beat up sneakers idly skimming the forest floor, like he's been here waiting the whole time. Waiting for Stiles to return and take him home. 

“Scott.”

**Author's Note:**

> https://zanniscaramouche.tumblr.com/post/190961842991/three-a-half-feet-tall-five-year-old-scott 
> 
> ^^ check my tumblr post for some neat graphics and spread the love <3
> 
> Am I really happy with this? Not totally. Am I going to write more? No. I got the story to the end of the TV plotline, but I recognize that I left a few things unresolved i.e. sterek???! (Sorry) Alas, the sun has set on this and my mind has moved on to newer, softer bunnies. 
> 
> I wrote this very quickly and entirely while at work and on my phone. It reads like a rough draft that doesn't know if it wants to be a novel or a screenplay and we're just going to have to live with that. 
> 
> A few easter eggs:  
(These are not pertinent to the plot and therefore I did not weave them into the story. They're just fun!)
> 
> Chris Hartley is Chris Argent, who moved Allison to her grandmothers when a big family shitstorm went down and then ended up with Hayden as his second chance to be a father! He is not aware of where Allison is or what she is up to, as he swore to break all contact with her so she would be safe from his crazy family.
> 
> The woman who appears to be Mrs. Martin is actually Malia! Go figure! And her shit father that turned to alcoholism after the car accident that killed her mother and sister. She can't let him go and looks after his rude ass. She met Lydia and agreed to do her a favour by signing as her guardian for the school. 
> 
> Jordan Parrish is my favourite child. That is all. 
> 
> Kudos & Comments are life <3


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